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THE   COMING   TEKROR, 

AND  OTHER  ESSAYS  AND  LETTERS. 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


THE    MOMEISTT    AFTEE: 

|l  "ialc  of  i^c  'gKttscctt. 

In  One  Volume,  crown  Sao. 

AthenSBUm.— '  it  should  be  read— in  daylight.' 

Observer. — '  a  clever  tourde  force. ' 

Guardian.— 'Particularly  impressive^ graphic,  and  powerful.' 

Bristol  Mercury.—'  Written  with  the  same  poetic  feeling  and 
power  which  have  given  a  rare  charm  to  Mr.  Buchanan's  previous 
prose  writings.' 

Spectator.—'  a  remarkable  little  study The  story  is 

certainly  an  impressive  one,  more  especially  the  story  of  the 
crime.' 

Speaker.— 'Few  living  authors  could  have  imagined  and 
written  the  narrative  of  Maurizio  Modena  as  Mr.  Buchanan  has 
imagined  and  written  it.  "  The  Moment  After  "  is  as  interesting 
as  any  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  previous  novels.' 

Academy.—'  The  dramatic  and  descriptive  powers  exhibited 
are  of  a  high  order.' 

Scottish  Leader.—'  One  of  the  most  weird  and  powerful 
imaginings  of  the  author  of  the  "  City  of  Dream."  ' 


LONDON : 
WILLIAM  HEINEMANN,  21,  BEDFORD  STREET,  W.C. 


THE   COMING  TERROR 


AND  OTHER  ESSAYS  AND  LETTERS 


BT 


ROBERT    BUCHANAN 


•  In  interiore  homine  habitat  Veritas.' — Augustine. 

'  Sir  To.  Dost  thou  think,  because  thou  art  virtuous,  there  shall  be 
no  more  cakes  and  ale  ? 

'  Clo.  Tea,  by  Saint  Anne — and  ginger  shall  he  hot  i'  the  mouth  too !' 

—Twelfth  Niffht. 

'  Leave  nothing  sacred— 'tis  but  just 
The  Many -headed  Beast  should  know.' — Tknkysom. 

^/^'^   OF  THE^ 

TJHIVEHSITTl 

ORK 
UNITED  STATES  BOOK  COMPANY, 
Successors  to 

JOHN    W.     LOVELL     COMPANY. 
1891. 


4^?ifb 


0,%'i 


^^€i 


NOTE   TO   THE   SECOND   EDITION. 


Scarcely  is  *  The  Coming  Terror '  issued  to  the 
world  than  a  Second  Edition  is  called  for — which. 
is  satisfactory  enough,  as  showing  that  even  the 
trades-union  of  Criticism  cannot  quite  kill  an  out- 
spoken book  by  a  non-union  man.  Here  and  there^ 
indeed,  to  my  astonishment,  the  work  has  received 
words  of  actual  approval,  qualified,  of  course,  with 
a  suggestion  that  it  need  not  be  taken  quite  seriously  ; 
but,  as  I  write,  the  good  old  three-decker  newspapers  j^^ 
are  beginning  to  takeTistless  aim  with  their  lieavy 
guns  at  my  cockle-shell.  The  Times  sends  a  sleepy 
projectile,  which  falls,  as  usual,  far  short  of  the 
mark ;  the  good  old  ship  Observer  deigns  to  fire  a 
random  and  rusty  shot,  while  thundering  heavily 
and  internally  about  '  gospel  according  to  Buchanan  ' 
and  '  angry  philippics ' ;  and  The  Speaker,  a  new  boat 
of  the  top-heavy  species,  tries  to  run  down  the  cockle- 
shell on  the  score  that  the  conduct  of  its  pilot  is  '  un- 
gentlemanly.'  Altogether,  I  have  to  congratulate 
myself  on  a  fair  measure  of  old-fashioned  abuse. 
To   have   been   saluted   amicably   by  the    Wooden 


vi  NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

Walls  of  Cockneydom  would  have  been  proof 
positive  that  my  little  vessel  contained  nothing 
but  sailing  orders  for  the  lumbering  Literary 
Fleet  and  complimentary  messages  from  Head- 
quarters to  the  blundering  gentlemen  in  command. 

I  resent  only  one  imputation,  —  that  I  have 
written,  and  write,  '  in  a  temper.'  If  it  were  true, 
it  would  not  be  surprising,  but  it  is,  in  point  of  fact, 
not  true  at  all.  I  am,  let  me  assure  my  critics,  a 
singularly  calm  person,  and  if  I  aim  at  a  whole 
Fleet  of  leakv  Vessels,  it  is  quite  coolly  and  good- 
humouredly.^/I  know,  quite  as  well  as  my  severest 
censor,  that  I  am  fighting  against  heavy  odds,  with 
no  chance  whatever  of  winning  the  battle.  I  know 
1  that  War,  Prostitution,  Providential  Legislation, 
\  the  New  Journalism,  the  New  Morality,  will  fling 
out  their  bunting  long  after  I  am  sunk  and  drowned. 
1  know  that  I  shall  be  shot  in  the  back,  beaten 
down,  swarmed  over,  and  generally  overcome,  by 
the  conventional  Marines.  Apresf  I  am  rather 
amused  than  angry.  '  Woe  to  you  when  the  world 
speaks  well  of  you,'  says  the  prophet.'^ 

I  must  warn  my  readers,  however,  against  one 
particular  method  of  the  enemy — the  method  chris- 
tened by  Charles  Reade  *  the  sham  sample  swindle.' 
By  quoting'  some  of  my  phrases  without  their  con- 
text, one  or  two  of  my  critics  have  attempted  to 
show  that  I  am  hostile  and  unjust  to  everybody, — 
that  I  call  Zola  '  a  dullard,'  denounce  Tolstoi,  and 
side  with  Philistia  against  other  great  personalities. 


NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION.  vii 


Readers  of  this  book  will  discover  how  far  and  how 
earnestly  I  justify  the  very  men  I  am  accused  of 
decrying,  and  a  reference  to  contemporary  chronicles 
will  further  establish  the  fact  that  I  alone,  among 
English  authors,  have  demanded,  even  for  the 
writers  with  whom  I  disagree,  perfect  Hberty  of 
literary  expression. 

Since  much  of  my  complaint  is  against  Journalism 
as  at  present  conducted,  I  can  expect  little  or  no 
mercy  from  that  quarter ;  and  I  ask  for  none. 
What  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  was  for  many 
centuries,  what  the  Protestant  Church  became 
during  the  period  of  its  decadence,  the  Churc*ii 
of  Journalism  is  to  the  present  generation, — 
shallow,  dogmatical,  cruel,  and  inquisitorial.  To 
secure  its  praise  and  sympathy,  means  both  moral 
and  intellectual  degradation.  Yet,  as  the  reader 
is  aware,  I  have  not  been  slow  to  avail  myself  of 
its  pulpits,  and  entering  its  temples,  to  denounce 
its  own  temporizers  and  money-changers,  to  be 
denounced  in  turn  as  a  dreamer  and  a  madman. 
I  am  possibly  the  one,  and  certainly  the  other  ;  for 
I  still  believe  in  the  strange  gods  whose  marble 
images  bestrew  the  world,  and  I  still  look  upward 
to  the  heavens,  not  downward  to  the  drains,  for  the 
Light  which  is  Life. 

That '  The  Coming  Terror '  is  a  Jeremiad  and  not 
a  gospel,  may  at  once  be  admitted.  Yet  Jeremiah 
was,  in  his  small  way,  a  gospeller  as  well  as  a 
prophet.       He     endured     '  reproach    and    derision 


viii  NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 

daily,'  his  townsmen  of  Anathoth  threatened  to 
slay  him  if  he  did  not  cease  exposing  abuses,  and 
even  his  own  family  *  dealt  treacherously  '  with  him. 
The  same  fate  awaits  every  man  who  fails  to  flatter 
authorities,  or  who  reminds  society  of  its  follies 
and  its  imperfections.  Even  Thackeray,  elegantly 
preaching  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Jeames,  was 
described  by  the  superfine  Reviewer  of  his  period 
as  *  no  gentleman.' 

KoBERT  Buchanan. 
A'^il  20th,  1891. 


PKEFACE.      - 


I  MUST  apologize  to  the  serious  reader  for  preserving,  in 
the  present  permanent  form,  at  the  request  of  many  cor- 
respondents, the  following  passing  comments  on  public 
events  and  social  phenomena.  My  aim  is  selfish,  yet  two- 
fold. Firstly,  these  comments  may  be  useful  by-and-by 
to  readers  of  my  less  desultory  contributions  to  literature ; 
secondly,  I  am  enabled,  in  republishing  them,  to  restore  one 
or  two  passages  which  were  too  outspoken  for  the  columns 
of  the  daily  newspaper  of  the  period. 

From  the  first  moment  I  began  to  write  I  have  been 
endeavouring  to  vindicate  the  freedom  of  human  Personality, 
the  equality  of  the  sexes,  and  the  right  of  Revolt  against 
arbitrary  social  laws  conflicting  with  the  happiness  of 
human  nature.  Had  I  paused  there,  I  might  have  secured 
the  suffrages  of  a  friendly  minority.  But,  unfortunately, 
while  defending  Freedom  on  the  one  hand,  I  have  been 
defending^  Society  on  the  other,  under  the  impression 
that  social  organization  is  not  always,  and  not  necessarily, 
tyrannical.  From  my  point  of  view,  the  average  Home  is 
not  invariably  (what  the  gentlemen  of  the  Hall  of  Science 
describe  it  to  be)  a  *  Harem,'  nor  is  the  average  Morality 
inextricably  associated  with  'the  piggish  virtues  of  the 
Georges.'  I  am,  therefore,  out  of  harmony  with  the 
minority  as  well  as  with  the  majority,  and  am  little  likely 
to  find  favour  with  either  party :  either  the  Convention- 


PREFACE, 


alists  who  assume  that  everything  existing  is  right,  or 
the  Reformers  who  beHeve  that  everything  existing  is 
wrong. 

\|r  At  this  moment  of  publication  a  great  wave  of  Mock- 
^  vl  3^orality  is  threatening  to  destroy  much  that  is  beautiful 
.land  pleasurable  in  Life,  in  Literature,  and  in  Art.  Nearly 
every  natural  function,  certainly  every  natural  enjoyment, 
has  been  arraigned  as  criminal,  and  the  vice  of  incontinence 
in  matters  of  the  Body  has  been  confused,  by  the  blind 
leading  the  blind,  with  the  passion  for  freedom  in  matters 
of  the  Soul.     Not  ioit  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 

__world,  Man  has  discovered  that  he  is  naked.  So  ashamed 
is  he  of  his  unclad  organism,  that  he  is  content  to  adopt 
any  kind  of  hypocrisy  as  a  garment.  The  ulcerous  rags  of 
Asceticism,  the  dingy  cloak  of  Pessimism,  the  tin-drawers 

I   sanctioned  by  the  Vatican,  the  cheap  slop-suit  of  current 

\  Socialism,  and  the  quasi-military  breeches  adopted  by  the 
Salvation  Army,  have  all  been    found    acceptable,   even 

rnecessary;  for  if  any  idea  is  established  among  philan- 
1  thropists  nowadays,  it  is  that  Man  is  naturally  an  indecent 
<l  animal,  and  that  his  propensities  are,  of  necessity,  brutal. 
I  This  idea  is  dominant  not  only  in  circles  professedly  puritan, 
I  but  in  circles  professedly  free  and  eclectic, — for  the  Calvin- 
ptic  preacher  and  the  advanced  Moral  Reformer  are  agreed 
jit  least  on  one  point,  that  the  World  is  ugly,  and  that  Man 
IS  a  Beast.     Hence  the  new  Gospel  of  Total  Abstinence  from 
the  Beautiful  and  the  Enjoyable ;  hence  the  creed  that  all 
/conduct,  all  emotion,  all  Life,  all  Literature,  all  Art,  must 
have  its  sanction  from  the  scientific  discovery  without,  not 
from  the  conscience  within ;  hence  certain  unnatural  ordi- 
nances of  Marriage  and  Divorce,  the  restriction  on  all  true 
freedom  of  Relation  between  the  sexes,  the  licensing  laws, ; 
the  inquisitorial  Councils,  the  new  Journalistic  Police,  the  j 
death  of  free  Literature,  and  tlie  paralysis  of  free  Art.     In'^ 
stead^  of  sunshine   and  fresh  air,  Humanity  accepts  the 
Din^^Science  in  excelsis ;  in  lieu  of  a  God  proved  to  be 


PREFACE, 


XI 


non-existent  or  paralytic,  it  clamours  round  its  Providence 
made  Easy. 

County  Councils,  Vigilance  Associations,  Arbitrary  Trades- 
unions,  the  new  Science  of  Self-Exposure,  and  the  new  Liter-  i 
ature  of  sexual  pathology,  areall^ut  steps  on  the  way  to  the  1 
^  dreary  millennium  of  State  Socialism,  to  the  peno^oftBe' 
greatest  Tyranny  of  the  greatest  Number.    Every  institution, 
however  peaceful,  however  beautiful,  is  to  be  destroyed  and 
trampled  down  under  the  hob -nailed   boots   of  Demos. 
Intellectual   activity    itself   will   soon    be  regarded    as   a 
dangerous   form   of  Competition!     What   the   world   will 
become  when  the  State  superintends  all  living  functions 
and  governs  all  living  acts  may  be  gathered  from  the  dire- 
ful prophecy  of  social  nullity  painted,  with  blind  and  mis- 
placed enthusiasm,  in  a  book  called  *  Looking  Backward.' 
Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  so  many  men,  dreading  the 
catastrophe,  turn  Tories  in  despair  ? 

The  main  contention  in  the  following  pages  is  that  no] 
amount  of  political  or  social  tinkering  will  complete  the 
process   Nature  chooses   to   work  out  by  her  own  slow 
methods   of   conscientious    evolution,  and    that,    by    the 
present  growth   of  quasi-providential   restriction,   by   the 
emergence  of  Mob  Morality  and  Mob  Rule,  those  sublime 
methods  are  being  indefinitely  retarded,  even  occasionally 
reversed.     In  proportion  as  we  limit  the  freedom  of  the\^ 
Individual,  we  retard  the  progress  of  the   Race,   destroy 
human  character,  debase   human  intelligence,  and  arrest 
the  development  of  the  social  conscience.     Sanitation  in 
both  the  physical  and  the  moral  world  comes  of  free  oxygen, 
free  sunshine,  and  free  exercise.     Knowledge  comes  of  per- 
sonal experience  and  suffering,  not  of  political  or  moral 
dogmas,  all  hollow  as  the  dogmas  of  any  and  every  Church. 
In  a  word,  no  organization  of  human  beings,  no  union,\ 
secular,  priestly,  or  apostolic,  can  help  one  man  to  *  save  \ 
his  Soul  alive,'  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  to  save  the  Souls/ 
of  those  he  loves. 


M  y 


xii  PREFACE. 


The  glory  of  the  Age  is  its  recognition  of  the  responsi- 
bilities of  human  Brotherhood ;  the  disgrace  of  the  Age  is 
its  attempt  to  confuse  philanthropy  with  tyrannous  legis- 
lation. Seen  from  the  standpoint  of  common  justice,  our 
present  condition  of  Society  is  one  actively  stirred,  in  every 
fibre,  by  the  science  of  Humanity.  Ways  and  means  may 
differ,  but  Tory  and  Liberal  alike  are  striving,  and  not 
ineffectively,  for  the  common  good.  If  the  balance  of 
private  philanthropy  and  beneficence  were  to  be  ascertained 
even  now,  it  would  be  found,  perhaps,  that  the  weight  of 
'  good  works '  was  on  the  side  of  those  who  are  trying  to 
conserve  whatever  is  just  and  noble  in  our  constitution ; 
that  in  all  matters  of  private  tolerance  and  kindliness  to 
human  beings  in  the  mass,  the  Tory  was  more  generous  than 
the  Liberal,  and  the  Liberal  more  sympathetic  than  the 
I  Radical. '  The  old  feudal  system  itself  was  wiser,  and  far 
!  pleasanter,  than  the  new  Despotic  Socialism.  The  last 
scientific  and  political  Providence,  like  the  old  Christianity, 
postulates  an  utterly  non-existent  and  absolutely  unreal 
Human  Nature ;  it  legislates  for  men  and  women  as  they 
never  were,  and  demands  a  perfection  of  obedience  which 
would  convert  them  into  moral  parasites.  Men  grow  by 
happiness  and  freedom,  by  the  exercise  of  every  natural 
function ;  men  dwindle  when  they  become  merely  portions 
of  a  Political  Mechanism.  The  result  of  Socialistic  Legisla- 
tion is  seen  nowadays  in  a  thousand  disastrous  forms — some 
of  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  describe  in  the  following 
pages ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  not  been  afraid, 
\  at  the  risk  of  seeming  inconsistent,  to  point  out  the  folly  of 
Jy  anti-social  forms  of  Individualism, — forms  which  show  the 
Y  Individual  anatomising  his  own  morbid  secretions,  parading 
I  his  own  obscene  discoveries,  shutting  out  the  common  sun- 
V  light,  and  finding  in  Nature  only  the  Calvinistic  phenomena 
of  Darkness,  Disease,  and  Death. 

R  B. 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

THE  COMING  TERROR :   A  DIALOGUE    BETWEEN  ALIENATUS,   A 

PROVINCIAL,  AND  URBANUS,  A  COCKNEY  -  -  1 
ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL?  A  CONTROVERSY  -  41 
ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL  :  A  PROTEST  AGAINST  OVER- 
LEGISLATION  IN  MATTERS  LITERARY  -  -  -  99 
THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC  -  -  -  143 
IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE?  -  -  -  -  183 
IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM  -  -  -  -  -  225 
IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL?  -  -  -  259 
FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM  : 

I.   WHAT  IS   SENTIMENT?         -                -                .  -   289 

II.   EMMA  wade's  martyrdom              -               -  -   297 

IIL   THE  APOTHEOSIS   OF  THE   GALLOWS              -  -   302 

IV.   THE  DEFEAT  OF  THE  TOTAL  ABSTAINER     -  -   308 

V.   THE  CARNIVAL  OF   ROBERT  BURNS                -  -   313 

VL   BENEFICENT   *  MURDER  '   (1)                -               -  -   319 

Vn.   BENEFICENT   '  MURDER  '   (2)                -                -  -   324 

VIII.   BOOKSELLERS'   ROMANCE      -               -               -  -   331 

IX.   PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  MIRACULOUS  CONVERSION  (1)    336 

X    PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  MIRACULOUS  CONVERSION  (2)    342 

XL    ♦  THE  JOURNALIST   IN   ABSOLUTION  '               -  -   349 


iv  CONTENTS, 


PAOK 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM— COn/inwe^  ; 

XII.    THE   COURTESAN   ON   THE  STAGE     -                -  -   354 

XIII.  GOETHE  AND   CRITICISM       -                -                -  -   357 

XIV.  *  DRAMATIC   CRITICISM  AS  SHE  IS   WROTE'  -  358 
FINAL  WORDS  : 

L   THE  PARADOX           -                -                -                -  -   363 

II.   THE  SOCIAL  SANCTION         -                -                -  -   368 

IIL   THE  OUTCOME  IN    MINOR  LITERARY   CRITICISM       -   370 

IV.   TYPES   OF  EGOISMUS              -                -                -  -   374 

V.    *  MORALITY  '   AS   LITERATURE            -               -  -   376 

VI.   THE  OUTCOME  IN   IDEALISM              -               -  -   381 

VIL    *  POOR  HUMANITY  '                -               -               -  -  383 


THE   COMING   TEREOR : 

A    Dialogue    between   Alienatus,    a    Provincial, 
AND  Urbanus,  a  Cockney. 


^^^  OF  THR      ^ 

VHIVBESITTl 

THE  COMING  TERROR  : 

A    Dialogue    between    Alienatus,    a    Provincial, 
AND  Urbanus,  a  Cockney. 


Urbanus.  I  have  often  wondered,  my  dear  Alienatus, 
at  the  very  scant  respect  you  seem  to  pay  to  law- 
fully constituted  authority,  and  to  those  who  have 
been  termed,  and  rightly,  the  leaders  of  mankind. 
This  attitude  of  irreverence,  combined  with  a  dis- 
position to  enter  into  combat  with  any  individual, 
however  ignoble  and  unworthy,  who  throws  down 
to  you  the  gage  of  battle,  has  prejudiced  many 
intelligent  people  against  you.  For  myself,  I  love 
a  quiet  life,  and  cannot  understand  the  tempera- 
ment which  disturbs  itself  with  social  and  political 
shadows  ;  and  I  think,  if  you  will  permit  me  to 
say  so,  that  your  position  in  the  world  would  have 
been  very  different  if  you  had,  like  certain  other 
poets,  led  '  a  philosopher  s  life  in  the  quiet  wood- 
land ways  ' — in  other  words,  let  the  squabbles  of 
the  world  alone,  and  confined  your  attention  to 
literature  pure  and  simple. 

1 — 2 


THE  COMING  TERROR. 


Alienatus.  That  is  possible  ;  but  literature  qud 
literature  has  ceased  to  interest  me  very  much. 

Urb.  You  surprise  me  !  Literature,  to  my 
thinking,  is  the  one  star  of  peacefulness  in  a  very 
troublesome  world.  A  play  of  Euripides  or 
Shakespeare,  a  poem  of  Theocritus  or  Tennyson 

All  Quite  so  ;  all  these  are  charming,  and  I 
hope  I  am  not  insensible  to  their  attractions.  At 
least  twenty  years  of  my  life  have  been  devoted  to 
the  study  of  what  is  best  and  most  beautiful  in 
written  books.  But  I  have  long  since  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  all  Art  is  a  trifle  compared 
with  the  terrible  problems  of  the  world  ;  and  so 
far  as  Poetry  is  concerned,  it  only  interests  me 
at  the  point  where  it  is  identical  with  the  higher 
idealism — Religion.  Besides,  you  are  aware  that 
in  my  opinion  Poetry  has  long  been  the  synonym 
for  mere  verbalism,  that  the  area  of  modern 
Verse  is  a  dark  plain  of  dulness,  vacuity,  and 
verbosity.  At  the  present  moment,  indeed,  I  can 
hardly  understand  the  type  of  intellect  which  sits 
apart  in  the  pursuit  of  mere  self-culture  of  any 
kind,  and  takes  no  trouble  to  ui|derstand  the 
mystery  of  actual  existence. 

Urb.   My  dear  fellow,  that  mystery  is  insoluble. 
We  can  know  nothing. 

All   Pardon  me  :  we  can  know  everything  that 
is  necessary. 

Urb.   The  wisest  men  who  have  lived  assert  the 
contrary. 


THE  COMING  TERROR, 


All  Pardon  me  again  :  the  really  wise  men 
have  offered  us  not  merely  supposition,  not  merely 
negation,  but  verification. 

Urb.   Verification  I — of  what  ? 

All  Of  the  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil,  of 
the  reality  which  abides  under  all  phenomena,  of 
the  absolute  reality  which,  for  want  of  a  better 
name,  we  entitle  God. 

Urb.  In  other  words,  the  Unknowable  ?  the 
Unrealizable  ?  the  Inconceivable?  the  Unthinkable  ? 

All  What  is  unthinkable  is  non-existent,  for 
Thought  is  the  only  absolute  Existence.  But  suffer 
me  !  If  w^e  go  on  like  this,  we  shall  get  into  the 
deep  waters  of  the  metaphysicians.  Let  us  confine 
ourselves,  on  this  occasion  at  least,  to  the  limitations 
of  experience.  What  sort  of  a  world  do  you,  from 
your  point  of  view,  find  it  ? 

Urb.  An  excellent  world,  if  meddlers  would  let 
it  alone.  A  delightful  world,  if  quidnuncs  would 
not  constantly  remind  us  of  its  imperfections.  He 
who  walks  through  it  with  his  eyes  alert  will  find 
it,  on  the  whole,  sweet  and  reasonable  enough.  He 
who  persists  in  star-gazing  is  sure  to  stumble  into 
some  open  grave.  Just  reflect,  my  dear  fellow, 
how  short  a  time  is  given  us  to  realize  our  powers 
at  all.  Is  it  not  the  height  of  folly  to  spend  that 
time  in  asking  questions  of  the  Sphynx  ? 

All  You  think,  then,  that  the  pleasures  of  con- 
sciousness are  all-sufficing  ? 

Urb.   It  is  sufficient  to  know  that  they  are  all 


THE  COMING  TERROR. 


we  can  possibly  compass  in  the  space  of  life  at  our 
command.  To  be  fairly  happy  ourselves,  to  make 
others  fairly  happy,  is  the  utmost  we  ephemera  can 
achieve. 

All   But  aft(ir  f 

Urb.   After   life  ?  Why,  a  blank  to  be  filled  up 
by  no  process  of  human  reasoning. 
All   Then  you  are  a  materialist  ? 
Urb.   Say,  rather,  a  Pantheist.       I   have   read 
Spinoza — a  delightful  soul  sent  to  teach  us  dilet- 
tanti   the    poetry  of  simple   mathematics,  and  to 
affirm  by  beautiful  syllogism  the  divine  religion  of 
intellectual  negation. 

All  Stop  there.  Come  back  to  the  world. 
Curiously  enough,  its  fascination  for  me  lies  in  the 
very  imperfections  you  would  wish  to  conceal.  I 
should  not  care  to  live — indeed,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  me  to  live — if  I  thought  the  secret  of 
life  inaccessible  to  human  reasoning,  and  it  is 
through  a  realization  of  imperfection  that  I  attain 
moral  security. 

Urb.  That's  a  paradox,  but  I  think  I  understand 
you.  You  mean  to  say  that  the  very  imperfection 
of  our  faculties  is  a  proof  that  there  is  a  perfection 
outside  that  imperfection  ;  the  Unknowable  is 
proved  by  the  very  limits  of  our  knowledge  ? 
All  Something  of  that  sort. 
Urb.  Thus,  if  I  shut  my  eyes  and  see  only 
blankness,  that  blankness  establishes  the  fact  of 
something  beyond  me  !     Well,  go  on. 


THE  COMING  TERROR. 


All  Let  me  return  to  my  own  conception  of 
Life.  It  consists  outwardly  of  the  phenomena  of 
imperfection,  urged  by  some  mysterious  force  upward 
to  a  point  which  at  present  seems  incomprehensible 
and  unattainable.  It  consists  inwardly  of  a  sensa- 
tion corresponding  to  those  phenomena,  equally 
imperfect,  and  equally  obedient  to  a  mysterious 
force.  I  dismiss  for  the  present  all  metaphysical 
argument  as  to  the  identity  of  the  phenomena 
without  and  the  sensation  within.  All  I  would 
imply  is,  that  both  the  physical  and  the  spiritual 
motion  is  in  an  upward  direction. 


TJrb.  All  philosophers  admit  it.  Even  Schopen- 
hauer does  so,  under  certain  qualifications — that  is, 
he  sees  the  world  advancing  intellectually  and 
morally,  but  only  towards  a  cul  de  sac  of  general 
despair.  To  be  very  good  is  to  be  very  miserable. 
Luckily,  /  am  not  good  ! 

All  My  own  conception  of  Life  consists  of  three 
processes — Feejing,  Knowing,  and  Divining ;  in 
other  words,  of  sympathy,  verification,  and  exalta- 
tion. Most  men  stop  at  the  first  process  ;  a  limited 
number  of  men  reach  the  second  ;  few  attain  the 
inspiration  of  the  third.  Sympathy  is  perceptive 
and  retrospective  ;  verification  is  sympathy  sanc- 
tioned by  science,  by  experience  ;  and  exaltation, 
the  last  process  in  this  moral  chemistry,  is  pro- 
spective and  prophetic. 

Urb.   Granted.      At  what  are  you  driving  ? 

All  At  my  old  hobby — the  construction  of  a 


THE  COMING  TERROR. 


^  J  Science  of  Sentiment,  capable  of  justifying  Life  and 
explaining  phenomena.  Let  us  now  alight  from 
the  airy  balloon  of  a  generalization,  and  come  down 
to  the  solid  ground.  I  predicted  to  you  some  time 
ago,  by  the  method  just  described,  that  the  Bel- 
shazzar's  Feast  of  modern  civilization  could  not  go 
on  for  ever  ;  that  some  day  we  should  discern  the 
fatal  Handwriting  on  the  Wall.  Well,  there  it  is, 
burning  before  our  eyes,  as  it  has  burned  for  the 
last  decade,  ever  growing  brighter  and  more  terrible. 
It  betokens  another  cataclysm  rapidly  approaching. 
Terrified  by  the  first  warning,  men  have  endeavoured 
to  prepare  against  the  advent  of  a  new  Reign  of 
Terror. 

Urb.  Possibly,  with  your  prophetic  faculties, 
you  can  tell  me  what  shape  that  Terror  will 
assume  ? 

All  The  shape  it  has  assumed  always,  that  of 
Anarchy,  that  of  the  Demogorgon,  who  is  all- 
creating  yet  all -destroying.  In  simpler  words. 
Humanity  will  arise  and  rend  itself  The  present 
Order  will  vanish,  like  a  house  built  on  sand,  but 
with  it  will  vanish  every  vestige  of  a  social  cosmos. 
The  triumphant  majority  of  human  beings  will 
trample  down  all  the  rights  of  minorities,  all  the 
privileges  of  individuals,  all  the  moral  differentiation 
of  the  human  race.  No  man  will  breathe  freely  in 
his  own  dwelling.  No  personal  life  will  grow,  upward 
or  downward,  its  own  way.  There  will  be  universal 
legislation,    expressed   in  a  creed  which  shall  base 


THE  COMING  TERROR. 


the  salvation  of  the  State  on  the  destruction  of  the 
individual. 

Urb.  By  what  tokens  do  you  assume  the  ex- 
istence of  this  tendency  ?  ^_      -^— -^i~ 

All  Firstly,  by  the  frightful  increase  of  social  ) 
legislation,  expressed  in  the  Acts  of  tyrannical  Parlia- 
ments, and  in  the  jDowers  given  to  civic  bodies  ; 
secondly,  by  the  apotheoses  of  political  and  scientific 
demagogues  ;  thirdly,  by  the  increased  corruption 
and  mouchardism  of  an  irresponsible  Press  ; 
fourthly,  by  the  completed  sinfulness  and  tardy  \ 
repentance  of  those  '  governing '  classes  who  no 
longer  govern  ;  fifthly,  by  the  gradual  deterioration 
of  our  jurisprudence,  once  the  symbol  of  our  inde- 
pendence ;  sixthly  and  most  decidedly,  by  the 
universal  conversion  of  religious  Catholicism  into  J 
the  Calvinism  of  Science.  .^^-^-^ — ^ 

Urb.  I  hardly  follow  you.  Let  me  ask  you,  to 
begin  with,  to  explain  the  paradox  which  represents 
Legislation  and  Anarchy  as  convertible  terms  ? 

All  I  had  thought  that  a  student  of  our  one 
sane  living  philosopher  would  have  needed  no  such 
explanation.  Mr.  Spencer  has  illustrated  in  his 
own  masterly  way  that  legislation  is  only  benefi- 
cent when  it  is  reduced  to  the  narrowest  possible 
compass  consistent  with  human  safety.  The 
tyranny  of  a  majority,  however  beneficent  in  inten- 
tion, becomes  of  its  own  nature  anarchic.  Anarchy, 
politically  speaking,  is  a  condition  of  things  repre- 
senting the  triumph  of  communities  over  the  wills 


lo  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

and  wishes  of  individual  men.  There  is  the  anarchy 
of  Despotism,  the  anarchy  of  Parhaments,  the 
anarchy  of  the  Bureau.  Every  one  of  these  means 
the  destruction  of  natural  rights  and  privileges, 
the  stifling  of  personal  aspiration,  the  death  of 
individual  enterprise  arid  endeavour. 

Urb.  Pass  by  your  charge  of  over-legislation.  I 
had  an  illustration  of  it  the  other  day,  when  I  heard 
it  proposed,  at  the  County  Council,  that  two  or 
three  zealous  elderly  gentlemen  should  be  told  off 
to  go  *  behind  the  scenes  '  of  an  evening,  and  see  if 
the  ballet-skirts  were  '  moral.'  Come  to  your 
Demagogues.  Surely  the  apotheosis  of  the  Dema- 
gogue is  the  aggrandisement  of  the  Individual  ? 

All  The  Demagogue  lives  by  pandering  to  the 
follies,  jealousies,  and  prejudices  of  the  democracy 
which  makes  him  possible.  I  will  not  cite  Mr. 
Gladstone  ;  my  respect  for  him  is  too  great  to 
allow  me  to  criticise  his  occasional  moral  misad- 
ventures. I  will  go  to  the  very  dregs  of  politics, 
and  cite  the  senior  member  for  Northampton.  Mr. 
Labouchere  has  many  gifts,  but  neither  sincerity  of 
purpose  nor  reverence  for  human  aspiration  is 
among  them.  He  has  gained  his  popularity,  his 
vogue,  by  becoming,  firstly,  the  Paul  Pry  of 
journalism,  and,  secondly,  the  Scapin  of  politics. 
He  has  violated  the  privileges  of  private  life,  by 
haunting  the  back  kitchens  of  the  aristocracy  and 
counting  the  candle-ends  of  the  governing  classes. 
A  mouchard  by  temperament  and  education,  he  has 


THE  COMING  TERROR, 


become  by  accident  a  legislator.  The  climax  of  his 
audacities  was  reached  only  the  other  day,  when 
openly,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  to  the  manifest 
satisfaction  of  a  crowd  of  fellow-demagogues,  he  pro- 
posed to  pollute  the  ears  of  his  fellow-members  by 
opening  up  the  moral  cesspool  of  a  foul  and  dis- 
graceful scandal.  Here  was  anarchy  indeed  about 
to  transform  itself  into  the  very  fibre  of  legislation. 
Fortunately,  even  the  bear-garden  of  St.  Stephen's 
is  not  yet  turned  into  a  commission  of  moral 
sewers.  • 

Urb.  Poor  Labouchere  !  He  has  his  good 
points.  Remember  the  toys  for  the  Children's 
Hospital. 

All  I  am  not  condemning  the  man,  but  the 
state  of  public  sentiment  which  makes  him  politic 
cally  possible.  He  has  been  praised  publiclj^  for 
his  services  in  exposing  the  vices  and  follies  of  the 
aristocracy.  Just  another  turn  of  the  wheel,  and 
he  would  consign  all  aristocrats  qud  aristocrats  to 
the  guillotine.  If  ever  the  Revolution  comes,  he 
will  be  its  Robespierre,  while  the  impassive  and  im- 
peccable Parnell  may  become  its  St.  Just.  But 
just  alter  the  circumstances.  Suppose  a  Dema- 
gogue were  to  arise  among  the  Tories,  and  to 
devote  his  energies  to  proving,  which  would  te 
easy,  the  vices  and  follies  of  the  proletariat,  or, 
again,  the  vices  and  follies  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
Would  not  such  a  person  be  cried  down  as  a 
nuisance,  ai  an  irrelevant  person,  wasting  his  time 


12  THE  COMING  TERROR, 

and  his  opportunities  ?  It  is  just  as  base  to  throw 
tilth  at  one  class  as  at  another.  To  do  them 
justice,  our  aristocrats  have  never  posed  as  morally 
impeccable,  and  from  time  immemorial  their  cavalier 
peccadilloes  have  been  far  more  venial  than  the 
cynical  Puritanism  of  the  plutocrats  who  serve 
Mammon  and  cheat  on  'Change.  ^ 

Urb.  Of  course  I  do  not  approve  of  scandal - 
mongering,  but  do  not  forget  that  the  man  you 
condemn  has  been  called  the  '  Friend  of  Ireland.' 

All  Poor  Ireland  !  Has  she  a  friend  indeed 
under  the  sun  ?  Mother'  of  demagogues  and 
desperadoe  ,  how  is  she  shamed  in  the  sight  of  the 
world  !  No  one  living  loves  Ireland  and  Irishmen 
more  than  I  ;  no  one  rejoices  more  that  an  unhappy 
nation  has  burst  its  bonds.  But  I  have  lived  in 
the  distressful  country,  not  merely  for  months,  but 
years,  and  I  have  witnessed  with  my  own  eyes  the 
terrorism  of  organized  communities  over  the  lives 
of  individual  men.  I  do  not  speak,  mind,  of 
assassination,  of  boycotting,  of  political  conspiracy, 
but  of  the  endless  petty  tyrannies  exercised  in 
ordinary  life  by  the  will,  the  caprice,  the  malice,  or 
the  ignorance  of  the  majority.  I  am  not  now 
alluding  to  the  Land  League,  or  to  any  political 
organization.  I  am  speaking  of  the  temperament 
which  converts  Irishmen,  wherever  they  gather 
together,  here  as  in  America  and  the  colonies,  into 
tyrannous  and  anarchic  group-.  As  the  nation  is, 
so  is  every  village  in  the  nation — the  abode  of  men 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  13 

whose  sole  aim  in  government  would  be,  under 
Home  Rule,  to  stifle  every  free  thought  and  free 
action  in  independent  members  of  the  community. 
What  they  have  achieved  now  by  conspiracy,  they 
would  rapidly  achieve  by  legislation,  and  in  a  short 
time  no  rational  Irishman  would  dare  to  call  his 
soul  his  own. 

Urb.  You  foresee,  then,  in  Ireland,  the 
imminence  of  the  new  Terror  ? 

All  Here,  as  well  as  there,  I  perceive  an  in- 
difference to  all  sanctions,  save  those  of  the 
arbitrary  will  of  the  majority.  The  enormous  in- 
crease of  taxation,  the  ever-increasing  transference 
of  responsibilities  to  the  shoulder  >  of  the  ratepayer, 
the  burdens  put  upon  every  description  of  private 
enterprise,  the  rapid  growth  of  State  prerogatives, 
the  embargoes  placed  on  moral  and  intellectual 
liberty,  the  moral  censorship  of  literature,  are 
portentous  signs  of  indifference  to  the  natural 
rights  of  Man. 

Urb.  Surely  we  have  witnessed  of  late  years  an 
extraordinary  movement  in  the  opposite  direction. 
Take  one  sign  from  the  Continent — the  resignation 
of  Prince  Bismarck,  and  the  humanitarian  attitude 
of  the  young  German  Emperor. 

All  Is  it  possible  that  so  transparent  a  piece  of 
legerdemain  can  deceive  the  eyes  of  any  rational 
man  ?  If  I  desired  to  select  any  modern  nation 
as  an  illustration  of  my  contention  that  over- 
legislation  is  moral  anarch^^^Jwould    select  the 


14  THE  COMING  TERROR. 


German  Empire,  a  regime  of  blood  and  iron, 
cemented  by  the  sacrifice  of  thousands  of  human 
beings.  The  man  Bismarck  was  a  Demagogue  who 
based  his  calculations  on  the  mad  hunger  of  the 
masses  for  Nationality.  He  succeeded  by  sheer 
brute  force  in  consolidating  an  authority  which 
made  the  people  militant  and  left  no  vestige  of 
real  freedom  in  the  land.  He  erected  the  new 
German  Empire  at  the  expense  of  the  liberty,  even 
the  moral  intelligence,  of  every  individual  Teuton. 
In  the  name  of  Christianity  he  destroyed  the  right 
of  each  human  being  to  save  his  soul  his  own  way. 
His  strength  was  the  will  of  the  people  ;  his  success 
was  the  proof  of  their  collective  unintelligence. 
With  the  gains  wrung  from  the  sweat  of  the 
nation's  brow,  with  the  willing  tribute  given  by 
communities  gone  mad  with  nationalism,  he  bought 
the  press,  while  violently  gagging  and  suppressing 
every  expression  of  honest  and  enlightened  opinion. 
And  what  has  come  of  it  ?  What  is  the  harvest 
of  the  blood-seed  sown  on  the  battle-field  in  the 
names  of  Christ  and  Death  ?  Social  stagnation, 
literary  dumbness,  political  anarchy  ;  for  now,  after 
all  this  waste  of  life,  arises  the  phantom  of  Demo- 
gorgon,  prompting  the  new  Emperor  on  his  throne, 
and  suggesting  that  a  tottering  Despotism  should 
be  fortified  by  the  suffrages  of  a  tyrannical 
Socialism.  '  The  game  of  Nationality,  the  farce 
of  war,  is  played  out,'  says  the  little  Csesar  ;  *  let 
me   now  summon   the   ''  Socialists,"  who  will   per- 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  15 

suade  my  people  to  rivet  the  fetters  on  their  own 
hands,  while  curbing  free  activity  and  enterprise 
in  all  directions.  Let  me  represent  now  by  Divine 
right  the  tyrannies  of  trades-unionism,  pseudo- 
co-operation,  and  "  beneficent "  legislation.  Let 
me  assume  the  sacred  prerogatives  given  to  me  by 
a  priesthood  of  atheists  using  the  old  shibboleth  of 
Christianity.'  What  will  be  the  result  ?  A  new 
kind  of  tyranny,  another  Providence  made  Easy, 
a  fresh  departure  in  the  region  of  governmental 
despotism.  The  Teuton,  already  a  slave  militant, 
will  become  a  slave  social,  and  on  his  gyves  will  be 
engraved  the  words  '  The  Necessity  of  Organization.' 

Urb.     Curious   language,    coming   from    you,    a 
professed  Socialist ! 

All  The  higher  Socialism  is  not  trades-unionism. 
The  object  of  the  higher  Socialism  is  less  to 
organize  under  political  agencies  than  to  widen  the 
area  of  personal  freedom  as  far  as  possible,  so  that 
in  proportion  to  the  liberty  of  action  granted  to 
individuals  would  be  the  comfort  and  security  of 
the  community.  As  I  have  often  contended,  true 
Socialism  is  only  another  name  for  Individualism. , 
WheiT  it  combines,  it  is  against  The  tyranny  of 
kings,  of  parliaments,  of  bureaus,  of  majorities  ; 
but  the  law  of  its  combination  is  that  free  action, 
free  thought,  free  speech,  is  the  prerogative  of 
every  one  of  its  members,  even  of  its  kings  and 
parliaments. 

Urb.  You  will  come  to  chaos  there,  my  friend  ! 


i6  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

Motto,  '  The  common  good,  and  every  man  for 
himself.' 

All  The  motto,  after  all,  is  not  such  a  bad  one. 
The  common  good  is  achieved  only  when  every 
individual  is  allowed  to  work  out  his  well-being  and 
salvation  through  his  own  activities.  Human 
nature  can  never  be  saved  by  any  kind  of  special 
Providence,  mundane  or  supra  -  mundane  ;  its 
strength  or  its  weakness  must  be  based  upon  the 
natural  laws  of  evolution.  Futile  is  the  legislation 
which  seeks  to  reconstruct  society  by  equalizing  the 
good  and  the  bad,  the  worthy  and  the  unworthy, 
the  strong  and  the  weak. 

Urb.  Then  your  so-called  higher  Socialism  is 
not  destructive  ? 

All   Oh,  but  it  is  ! 

Urb.  I  thought  so.  You  yourself,  for  example, 
liave  argued  strongly  against  monopolies  in  pro- 
perty and  land,  and  you  have  said,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  that  the  will  of  the  people  has  the  right, 
at  the  expense  of  individuals,  to  redress  centuries 
of  wrong-doing. 

All  Certainly.  The  voice  of  conscience  has  a 
right  to  be  heard,  whenever  class  caprice  or  local 
legislation  acts  in  defiance  of  absolute  ethical  and 
political  principles. 

Urb.   Name  a  few  of  these  principles,  if  you  can. 

All  You  will  find  them  very  excellently  set 
forth  in  that  old-fashioned  Book  containing  the  Ten 
Commandments.     Not  one  of  those  Ten  Command- 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  17 

ments  limits  irrationally  the  moral  freedom  of  the 
individual. 

Ukb.  I'm  not  so  sure  about  that.  The  seventh, 
for  example  ?  I  have  never  yet  been  quite  able 
to  realize  the  caprice  of  a  Providence  which  fills  us 
with  certain  passions,  and  yet  damns  us  for  their 
gratification. 

All  Still  more  difficult,  I  say,  is  it  to  realize 
the  legislation  which,  while  recognising  the  com- 
mandment, adopts  measures  for  its  safe  infraction. 
Next  to  War,  perhaps  even  more  than  War, 
Prostitution  is  the  bane  of  modern  communities. 
Like  War  again,  it  is  recognised  as  a  necessary  evil. 
Now,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  necessary  evil. 

Urb.  How  would  you  propose  to  get  over  the 
difi&culty  as  regards  the  daily  and  hourly  breach  of 
the  seventh  commandment  ? 

All  '  By  clearly  explaining  what  that  command- 
ment means  ;  by  showing  that  the  thing  forbidden 
is  only  adulterous  where  it  infringes  on  the  abso- 
lute rights  of  other  individuals.V\  Meantime,  the 
new  Peign  of  Terror  will  reach  its  full  fruition, 
when  the  legislator  decrees  that  human  passions, 
and  their  indulgence,  are  of  necessity  immoral,  when 
the  adamantine  laws  of  Marriage  contract  are  made 
still  more  onerous,  when  the  inherent  Puritanism 
of  Science,  supported  by  the  suffrages  of  a  cynical 
majority,  doubles  and  trebles  the  penalties  to  be 
paid  by  poor  human  nature  for  natural  mistakes. 
Scientific  Puritanism,  you  will  discover,  is  only  the 

2 


i8  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

old  Inquisition  under  another  name.  At  certain 
periods  of  human  progress  (see  Mr.  Lecky  passim) 
not  only  natural  appetites,  but  natural  affections, 
were  looked  upon  as  suggestions  of  the  Devil. 
Love  was  identical  with  lust,  and  so  degraded 
became  the  moral  consciousness,  that  the  male 
avoided  and  feared  the  female,  even  in  the  person 
of  a  mother  or  a  little  female  child.  We  have  got 
a  little  beyond  that  now,  but  we  have  yet  to 
recognise  the  fact  that  the  passion  of  Love  is  not  a 
phrase  to  include  the  criminal  aspects  of  adultery. 
The  anarchy  into  w^hich  moralists  as  well  as  poli- 
ticians are  now  drifting  may  be  illustrated  by  a 
reference  to  the  last  work  of  Count  Tolstoi,  at 
once  the  most  influential  and  the  least  consistent  of 
modern  novelists — a  writer  who,  more  than  any 
other  living,  touches  the  quick  of  human  evil  and 
defines  the  limits  of  human  freedom.  Yet  never 
was  the  inhumanity  of  the  Puritanical  bias  more 
painfully  illustrated  than  in  this  book  of  the  most 
beneficent  of  recent  legislative  teachers.  In  the 
^Kreutzer  Sonata,'  a  study  of  the  morbid  anatomy  of 
marriage,  Count  Tolstoi  contends,  against  experi- 
ence, against  instinct,  against  all  verification,  that 
those  marriages  are  happiest  which  resemble  most 
a  placid  and  non-passionate  friendship  between  the 
sexes  ;  that,  in  other  words,  the  passion  of  Love  is 
a  fatal  preliminary  to  any  abiding  relationship 
between  man  and  woman.  With  cold  and  pitiless 
hands,    the     writer    breaks     the    golden    bowl    of 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  19 

Romance,  and  tells  us  that  Passion  is  of  necessity 
evil,  illustrating  his  thesis  by  a  picture  of  such 
foulness  as  might  have  emanated  from  the  diseased 
imagination  of  a  mediaeval  monk.  In  some  of  his 
contentions  I,  of  course,  agree — in  his  crusade 
against  mere  animalism,  against  the  legalization 
of  Prostitution,  against  the  carefully  protected 
impurity  of  men.  But  to  hear  from  such  a  teacher 
that  the  most  divine  thing  in  Life,  young  Love  and 
young  Romance,  the  Soul's  Ecstasy,  the  Body's 
Sacrament,  the  World's  Desire,  is  only  foulness 
and  foul  vanity,  makes  one  despair  of  human 
wisdom.  Teaching  like  this  is  only  another 
form  of  the  legislation  which  is  substituting  every- 
where for  natural  law  an  unnatural  system  of 
repression.  When  the  new  Reign  of  Terror  is 
completed,  we  shall  breed  our  human  beings  as 
we  breed  our  cattle,  by  the  sanitary  rules  of  a 
scientific  legislation,  and  under  the  beneficent 
inspection  of  some  suffragan  St.  Simeon  Stylites. 

Urb.  Such  a  system  of  selection  has  indeed 
been  suggested,  that  we  may  avoid  the  evils  of 
hereditary  disease  and  over-population.  I  confess 
that  I  agree  with  you  in  regarding  its  possibility 
with  a  certain  feeling  of  horror.  It  is  not  to  be 
disputed,  however,  that  these  evils,  particularly 
that  of  the  propagation  of  diseased  and  inferior 
types,  will  have  to  be  reckoned  with  somehow. 

All  Undoubtedly,  and  the  way  our  legislation 
reckons  with  them   is   by  protecting  diseased  and 

2—2 


20  THE  COMING  TERROR. 


inferior  types  at  the  cost  of  the  hale  and  superior. 
Do  not  misunderstand  me,  however.  I  have 
always  contended  that  physical  defect,  so  far  from 
being  necessarily  evil,  is  often  a  defect  in  the  line 
of  growth.  The  idea  of  scientists,  that  a  perfectly 
strong  and  healthy  breed  of  men  and  women  would 
of  necessity  be  a  higher  development,  is  as  absurd 
as  that  other  idea  which  attaches  a  fictitious  im- 
portance to  the  laws  of  heredity.  Weak  and 
diseased  men  are  often  the  salt  of  humanity. 
Strong  and  healthy  men  and  women  not  un- 
frequently,  by  some  mysterious  law,  produce 
degraded  offspring.  Meantime,  the  phrase 
*  Heredity  '  has  become  part  of  the  scientific  shib- 
boleth which  converts  feeble  thinkers  into  social 
tyrants. 

Urb.  You  seem  very  severe  on  Science  generally. 

All  Heaven  forbid  !  CTrue  Science,  like  true 
Religion,  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  empirical 
tyranny.  So  long  as  our  men  of  science  concerned 
themselves  with  discovery  and  verification  of  the 
facts  of  Nature,  so  long  as  they  loosened  the  bonds 
of  Humanity  by  proving  that  these  bonds  were  for 
the  most  part  self-imposed,  so  long  as  they  waged 
destructive  war  against  Superstition  and  touched 
no  one  of  these  Verities  which  are  the  birthright 
of  thinking  men,  they  were  saviours  and  bene- 
factors. \ Their  organization  into  a  Priesthood  of 
personal /inquiry,  into  a  social  Inquisition,  was  a 
proof  that    they  had    yielded  up  prerogatives  in 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  21 

favour  of  an  intellectual  despotism.  The  true 
scientist  is  reverent  like  Faraday,  and  cautious  like 
Darwin.  The  false  scientist  is  the  incipient  moral 
demagogue  ;  one  of  the  Beadles  of  the  Nation  ;  the 
thinker  who  sacrifices  the  love  of  pure  and  gentle 
individual  progress  to  an  insane  love  of  forcing, 
by  systems  of  repression,  the  tardy  work  of  Evolu- 
tion. I  have  criticised,  in  another  connection,  the 
attempt  of  Professor  Huxley,  a  very  familiar  type 
of  the  scientist  militant  and  political,  to  limit  and 
even  to  deny  altogether  the_naturaLRig-hts  of  Man, 
and  I  have  been  rebuked  a  little  flippantly  by 
this  gentleman  for  presuming  to  assert  that  true 
Socialism  is  not  the  Socialism  of  the  Day.  This 
good  man,  while  indirectly  defending  the  status  quo, 
denies  absolute  political  principles  altogether,  and 
would  substitute  for  human  freedom  the  half- 
verified  discoveries  of  a  small  scientific  Providence 
— a  Providence  whose  cardinal  principle  appears 
to  be  :  let  political  reformations  alone,  and  impose 
on  the  individual  who  is  struggling  for  freedom 
as  many  restrictions  as  possible.  To  talk  of  the 
rights  of  men  is,  according  to  this  Daniel  come 
to  judgment,  about  as  wise  as  to  talk  of  the  rights 
of  wild  beasts,  e.g.,  the  man-eating  tiger.  More 
than  most  publicists,  such  men  as  he  are  hastening 
on  the  advent  of  the  New  Terror. 

Urb.  Well,  come  to  your  third  token  of  the 
tendency  to  save  the  State  at  the  expense  of  the 
Individual.      I  think  you  cited  the  New  Journalism. 


22  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

Surely  if  freedom  of  speech  is  found  anywhere,  it 
is  in  the  columns  of  that  Journalism. 

All   I  have  failed  to  discover  it. 

Urb.   Indeed. 

All  The  New  Journalism,  above  most  things, 
is  tyrannous  and  anarchic.  So  far  from  being  the 
free  speech  of  individual  men,  it  is  the  voice  of 
the  Demogorgon  proclaiming  the  era  of  completed 
literary  ignorance.  Next  to  the  tyranny  of  Par- 
liaments is  the  despotism  of  the  newspaper. 
Practically  irresponsible,  feeding  the  weak  appe- 
tites of  the  community  with  the  garbage  of  the 
latest  news,  sending  its  mouchards  into  every  house, 
imposing  its  espionage  on  every  public  individual, 
weaving  its  tissue  of  scandals  and  of  falsehoods, 
judging  everything  and  every  man  by  the  hastily 
erected  standard  of  the  humour  of  the  hour,  the 
New  Journalism,  an  importation  from  America,  has 
paralyzed  literature  and  destroyed  free  thought  and 
free  feeling  all  over  the  world.  The  man  who 
used  to  think  now  takes  his  thought  from  the 
current  printed  cackle  of  the  moment.  The  man 
who  used  to  read  now  skims  the  surface  of  current 
news  and  deems  it  information.  In  proportion  to 
the  anarchic  tongue-confusion  of  this  last  Tower 
of  Babel  is  the  deadening  of  all  sense  of  decency, 
the  loss  of  all  sense  of  individual  liberty. 

Urb.  Heyday !  would  you  have  no  gossip 
in  newspapers  at  all  ?  You  forget  that  we 
moderns  are    in    far    too  great   a    hurry  to    read 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  23 


treatises    and    voluminous   tomes,    or    even   sober 
newspapers. 

All  The  hurry  of  which  you  speak  is  that  of 
the  social  River  shooting  to  its  fall.  All  light,  all 
peac6,  all  peacefulness,  all  the  stillness  of  the  home, 
all  the  beauty  of  life,  is  covered  by  this  common 
cloud  of  ignorance,  and  destroyed  by  the  Ameri- 
canised Newspaper.  By  the  New  Journalism  the 
individual  thinker  is  tortured  and  cried  down.  It 
is  Babbage's  Organ  in  the  Street. 

Urb.   People  must  read  something! 

All  Better  to  read  nothing  than  to  read  what 
deadens  their  very  sense  of  freedom,  and  pulls 
them  out  into  the  clamour  of  the  common  hue  and 
cry.  Take  up  one  of  these  journals  at  random, 
and  what  do  you  find  ?  Firstly,  the  publication 
of  a  Scandal  so  infamous,  and  described  so  in- 
famously, that  the  very  air  of  Nature  is  polluted 
as  by  a  cesspool,  the  stench  of  which  penetrates 
as  poison  into  every  household  of  the  land  ;  and 
secondly,  close  to  this  inhuman  parade  of  filth, 
made  in  the  name  of  a  repressive  moral  legislation, 
a  'plebiscite  of  readers  on  the  moral  and  intellectual 
qualities  of  the  ^  Best  Books,'  or  the  ^  Best  Men.' 
Could  the  completed  sinfulness  of  ignorance  go 
further  ? 

Urb.  The  idea  of  the  plebiscite  was,  I  suppose, 
merely  that  of  gathering  information  as  to  what 
books  were  most  read,  and  what  teachers  were 
most  in  vogue. 


24  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

All  Just  so  ;  literary  truth  and  honour  were 
to  be  gauged  by  the  mind  of  the  general  reader, 
merits  were  to  be  assessed  by  the  suffrage  of 
creatures  base  enough  to  subscribe  to  this  very 
journal  of  abominations.  Observe,  moreover,  that 
I  include  in  the  phrase  '  the  New  Journalism '  even 
certain  publications  which  appear  at  longer  in- 
tervals than  does  the  daily  paper  :  the  monthly 
reviews  of  human  inanity,  the  quarterly  reviews 
of  dead  or  dying  prejudices.  Here  is  a  case  in 
point.  A  review  once  fairly  sane,  but  now  puzzle- 
headed,  publishes  an  article  entitled  '  Tennyson — 
and  After,'  in  which,  after  a  cold  and  cruel 
calculation  that  one  of  the  noblest  poets  of  the 
hour  must  in  the  course  of  Nature  shortly  dis- 
appear, the  writer  firstly  suggests  a  possible 
successor  to  what,  if  so  great  a  soul  had  not 
adorned  it,  would  be  a  barren  honour,  and,  secondly, 
points  the  finger  of  scorn  at  men  who,  so  far  as 
I  know,  would  reject  that  barren  honour  if  it  were 
given.  Thus,  to  paraphrase  the  present  Laureate's 
words,  it  is  not  sufficient  for  the  singer  '•  to  leave 
his  music  as  of  old,'  but  over  him,  even  while  he 
breathes,  even  while  he  still  brightens  the  sunshine, 
'  begins  the  scandal  and  the  cry.'  That,  perhaps, 
is  a  mere  trifle — the  mere  cackling  of  a  goose  in 
the  Pantheon.  But  what  shall  we  say  of  the 
Journalistic  Demagogue  who,  confident  of  the  pre- 
vailing anarchy,  sure  of  the  reigning  madness  and 
folly,  offers   to    turn    his   review,  his  journal,   his 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  25 

magazine  of  stolen  goods,  into  a  Confessional — into 
a  place  of  vantage  where  he  may  sit  listening  to 
all  the  obscene  details  of  human  sin  and  misery, 
and  so  sitting,  dispense  an  uncleanly  absolution  ? 

Urb.  The  New  Journalism  has  never  loved  you, 
my  dear  Alienatus.  Henceforward,  I  fear,  it  will 
love  you  even  less. 

Alt.  I  never  craved  its  love  or  feared  its  hate. 
Yet  understand  me.  When  I  speak  thus  of  one 
form  of  Journalism,  and  cite  these  instances  of  its 
folly  and  criminality,  I  am  not  blind  to  the  fact 
that  elsewhere,  despite  this  last  manifestation  of 
mob-rule.  Humanity  is  kept  alive.  There  have  been, 
and  there  are,  great  journalists — men  full  of  even 
prophetic  vision  ;  many  of  these  men  have  sunk 
into  the  vortex,  never  to  emerge  again ;  a  few 
survive,  crying  '  peace '  to  the  anarchy  around 
them.  It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  in  the  crowd 
of  souls  not  one  upturned  his  forehead  to  the 
Light. 

Urb.  Then  you  do  not  denounce  Journalism 
altogether  ? 

All  I  might  as  well,  like  Canute,  denounce  the 
rising  tide.  After  the  Coming  Terror  has  reached 
its  height,  these  waves  which  now  threaten  to 
submerge  us  will  settle  down.  What  is  best,  what 
is  truest  and  gentlest,  in  Journalism  as  in  Life,  will 
certainly  survive.  Not,  however,  before  Thermidor, 
the  hot  month,  which  shall  consume  the  mouchard 
and  the  scandal-monger,  and  scorch  up  the  sham- 


26  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

priest  and  sham-philanthropist.  Even  now  we 
may  see  how  these  organs  of  pubhc  opinion  turn 
like  wild  beasts  and  rend  each  other.  Even  now 
we  may  see  how  the  venomous  press  turns  en  masse 
on  those  journals  which  still  remember  the  laws  of 
literature  and  preserve  their  self-respect.  For- 
tunately, such  journals  still  exist,  to  point  the  way 
to  literar}^  reformation. 

Urb.  I  fancy  they  are  many — the  others  few. 
But  (may  I  confess  it  ?)  I  find  the  many  very  dull. 
I  like  hot  spice  in  my  daily  literature. 

All  You  are  a  Philistine — no,  I  beg  your 
pardon,  a  Cockney.  Ah,  well,  after  all,  the 
Cockney  triumphs! 

Urb.  If  Boston  is  the  '  hub '  of  the  universe, 
Cockayne  is  the  *  hub  '  of  civilization.  Come  to 
your  governing  classes,  and  to  your  jurisprudence. 

All  Our  governing  classes  no  longer  really 
govern ;  if  they  still  occupy  the  high  seats  of 
Olympus,  it  is  in  impotence  of  Godhead,  trembling 
at  Demogorgon — Socialism,  the  Mob,  the  Plebiscite. 
Some  of  them,  in  sheer  despair,  spring  down  to 
join  the  anarchists.  Our  jurisprudence,  once 
founded  on  faith  in  the  Divine  Order,  once  rational 
and  honest,  is  now  rapidly  disintegrating  under  the 
influence  of  atheists  who  hourly  take  the  oath  to 
God,  and  the  cruel  Catholicism  of  superstition  is 
rapidly  being  supplanted  by  the  cruel  Puritanic 
bias  of  modern  materialism.  Personally,  I  have 
been  much    censured    for   having   proclaimed    my 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  27 

astonishment  that  an  agnostic  Judge  should 
sentence  a  criminal  to  death  in  the  name  of  a 
Deity  in  whom  he,  the  Judge,  does  not  believe. 
Such  an  act,  in  my  opinion,  is  of  the  very  nature 
of  Jesuitical  insincerity.  I  would  go  further,  and 
assert  that  no  official  of  avowed  infidelity  should 
hold  office  in  a  Christian  land.  Observe,  however, 
that  I  am  not  vindicating  Christianity,  but  merely 
pleading  for  moral  consistency.  The  day  indeed 
is  not  far  distant  when,  under  the  New  Terror, 
the  term  Christianity  will  be  abolished. 

Urb.   How   so  ?     And   what   term    would    you 
suggest  in  its  place  ? 

All  Any  term  which  fitly  expressed  the  truth. 
We  are  no  longer  Christians.  Why  continue  to 
use  the  name  ?  I  know  what  you  would  say, 
that  the  word  '  Christianity  '  expresses  all  that  is 
noblest  and  best  in  our  civilization.  That  is  so  ; 
but  it  expresses  far  more — the  supernatural  super- 
human element  in  which  we  have  ceased  to  believe. 
If  Christianity  had  been  only  a  creed  of  rigid 
morality,  of  brotherly  kindliness  and  goodness,  of 
altruism,  it  would  have  perished  centuries  ago. 
Its  survival  is  due  to  the  assertion  made,  or  re 
puted  to  have  been  made,  by  its  Founder,  that 
this  world,  so  far  from  being  perfectible,  is  only 
a  preliminary  to  another  world,  or  worlds,  of  in- 
finitely higher  perfection  ;  that  Man  is  not  perish- 
able, but  individually  immortal ;  that,  in  simple 
words,  Man  has  an  eternal  Soul.      How  many  of 


28  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

our  lawyers,  our  legislators,  our  publicists,  even 
our  clergymen,  believe  thatf  Yet  everywhere  the 
Name  of  God  is  used  to  endorse  profane  documents, 
the  shibboleth  of  supernaturalism  is  employed  to 
sanctify  legal  fiction.  If  Jesus  Christ  w^alked  in 
the  streets  to-day,  and  worked,  or  pretended  to 
work,  miracles  of  healing,  he  would  be  arrested  as 
an  impostor  and  a  charlatan,  testified  against  by 
witnesses  who  kissed  the  New  Testament,  and  sent 
to  prison,  possibly  by  a  clerical  magistrate  who  had 
taken  the  oath  that  the  accused  was  Divine.  You 
smile.  You  think  I  exaggerate  the  importance 
of  consistency  and  honesty  in  such  matters  ?  But 
no  law,  no  jurisprudence,  no  legislation,  can  be 
safely  built  upon  a  Lie.  If  we  are  Christians,  we 
belie  our  creed,  we  forswear  ourselves,  every  hour 
of  our  lives.  If  we  are  not  Christians,  we  are 
rogues  and  liars. 

Urb.   You  would,  then,  abolish  Christianity  ? 

All  I  would  abolish  all  tampering  with  terms  ; 
I  would  use  words  to  symbolize  the  truth.  I  would 
have  the  word  *  Christianity  '  confined  to  the  area  of 
its  actual  believers.  I  would  not  allow  it  to  cover, 
with  a  mantle  of  compromise,  a  Nation  which  still 
believes  in  such  paganisms  as,  for  example,  the 
paganism  of  War.  But  let  us  turn  for  a  moment 
to  another  point  illustrative  of  the  disintegration 
of  jurisprudence  under  the  action  of  anarchic 
Parliaments.  You  observed,  no  doubt,  the  recent 
extraordinary  action  of  the  Home  Secretary  in  the 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  2.9 

case  of  that  cause  celebre,  the  murder  at  Crewe. 
Now,  the  point  to  which  I  would  soHcit  your 
attention  is,  not  the  mental  aberration  of  the 
gentleman  at  the  Home  Office,  but  the  enormity 
of  the  legislation  which  transfers  a  public  duty  to 
the  shoulders  of  a  political  official  ;  not  to  the 
process  of  reason  by  which  the  Home  Secretary 
arrived  at  his  lame  and  impotent  conclusion  to 
execute  one  of  the  brothers  and  to  spare  the  other 
and  the  more  guilty,  but  to  the  monstrous  and 
almost  incredible  fact  that  a  salaried  State 
Secretary,  holding  office  in  the  name  of  a  political 
majority,  has  the  power  to  decide  absolutely,  in 
the  face  of  an  English  Jury,  on  a  question  of  life 
or  death. 

Urb.   Such,  you  are  aware,  is  the  law. 

All  It  is  the  law  I  am  indicting.  I  have 
followed  its  records,  and  watched  the  process  by 
which  human  conscience  has  tried  to  leaven  the 
brutality  of  those  legal  principles  among  which 
Mr.  Justice  Stephen  has  included  the  '  lawful ' 
thirst  for  *  revenge.'  It  is  not  so  far  a  cry,  as 
many  think,  from  the  cruelty  of  the  old  Roman 
law  against  Parricide,  to  the  new  English  law 
against  similar  offences.  Then,  as  now,  it  was 
thought  expedient  to  teach  tenderness  and  affec- 
tion by  a  process  of  judicial  torture.  Then,  as 
now,  the  ethics  of  punishment  were  primitive, 
violent,  and  irrational.  Then,  as  now,  it  was  part 
of  the  judicial  method  to  illustrate  the  sinfulness  of 


30  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

slaughter  by  an  official  exhibition  of  the  same  blood- 
shed which,  in  non-official  exhibitions,  awakens  so 
much  natural  horror. 

Urb.  I  am  aware  that  you  have  frequently 
protested  against  the  Death  Penalty. 

All  It  is  not  my  purpose  at  present  to  enter 
on  the  broad  question  of  the  expediency  of  capital 
punishment  under  any  circumstances  whatever. 
The  point  to  which  I  desire  to  draw  your  attention 
is  the  present  condition  of  our  legislation,  as  illus- 
trated by  the  condemnation  of  the  boy-murderers 
at  Crewe.  These  wretched  youths,  under  circum- 
stances of  frightful  provocation,  took  their  father's 
life.  They  were  tried  before  a  jury  of  twelve 
intelligent  Englishmen,  representing,  according  to 
English  law,  the  rest  of  their  countrymen,  and 
they  were  found  guilty,  but  with  '  a  recommenda- 
tion to  mercy.'  Mercy  ?  To  whose  mercy  ? 
Their  God's  ?  Their  human  Judge's  ?  Surely, 
in  this  connection,  the  very  word  '  mercy '  was 
fatuous  and  absurd.  What  the  jury  meant  by  that 
miserable  formula,  which  Officialism  compelled  them 
to  adopt,  was  simply  this  :  '  These  boys  certainly 
committed  parricide,  but  the  facts  we  have  investi- 
gated establish  that  their  guilt  was  qualified,  and 
that  they  do  not  deserve  to  pay,  and  shall  not  pay, 
the  full  penalty  of  their  crime.'  What  follows  ? 
The  chosen  representatives  of  the  people  having 
decided  that  the  prisoners  are  not  to  die,  the 
salaried  official  straightway  puts  on  the  black  cap 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  31 

and  condemns  them  to  die,  adding  another  miserable 
formula,  that  he  will  convey  to  ^  the  proper  quarter  ' 
the  jury's  recommendation  to  mercy.  Surely 
common-sense  must  decide  that  it  was  the  Judge's 
business,  either  to  quash  the  verdict  altogether  as 
against  the  weight  of  evidence,  or  to  adopt  the  find- 
ing of  the  jury  and  at  once  to  pass  some  such  lesser 
sentence  as  would  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
case  ?  But  the  Law  said  ^  No  ! '  The  Law  said 
that  the  formulas  of  official  imbecility  should  be 
pursued  throughout.  The  Law  said  that  the 
verdict  of  English  citizens,  the  true  and  only 
representatives  of  public  opinion  and  public  justice, 
shall  be  referred  to  a  'petit  mattre  at  the  Home 
Office,  to  be  decided  ex  cathedrd  then  and  there. 
The  Caiaphas  of  the  bench  transfers  his  responsi- 
bility to  a  small  political  Pontius  Pilate.  *  Shall 
these  men  die  ?  The  voice  of  the  people  cries 
"  Spare  them,"  but  it  is  for  thee,  0  Pilate,  to 
decide.'  Well  would  it  be  for  all  of  us  if  the  new 
Pilate  Punchinello,  like  his  nobler  prototype,  had 
washed  his  hands  of  the  whole  business.  He  could 
not  do  that.  He  might,  nevertheless,  have  re- 
membered that  his  position  as  arbitrator  was  only 
another  miserable  formula.  He  might  have 
recognised  the  fact  that  the  sentence  of  mercy 
had  already  been  pronounced,  by  the  only  men 
authorized  by  the  nation  to  pronounce  it,  and  that 
he,  as  a  political  official,  was  only  the  mouthpiece 
and  the  servant  of  the  Eno:lish  nation. 


32  THE  COMING  TERROR. 


Urb.   I  suppose  he  acted  according  to  his  Hghts? 

All  Possibly.  We  have  had  '  hanging '  judges 
and  '  hanging '  Home  Secretaries,  all  existing  in 
the  miasmic  fog  of  our  jurisprudence.  Fortu- 
nately for  humanity,  we  have  no  longer  our 
*  hanging '  Juries,  for  at  the  present  stage  of  our 
enlightenment  it  is  difficult  to  get  together  twelve 
human  beings  equally  devoid  of  the  reasoning 
faculty  and  the  sentiment  of  humanity.  On  the 
breath  of  no  one  individual,  however  just,  however 
powerful,  should  hang  an  issue  of  life  or  death. 
Review  again  this  tale  of  Parricide,  in  the  light 
which  shines  everywhere  save  in  the  sunless  cave 
of  Officialism.  The  murdered  man  was,  we  know, 
a  husband  and  a  father ;  he  had  a  wife  whom  he 
tortured  and  tried  to  kill,  and  he  had  children  who 
were  maddened  by  the  sufferings  he  inflicted  on 
their  mother.  '  True,'  the  old  Roman  law  would 
say,  and  is  still  saying  ;  '  but  he  was,  above  all,  a 
father'  I  endeavoured  a  little  while  ago,  you  re- 
member, to  suggest  the  outlines  of  a  Science  of 
Sentiment  ;  such  a  Science  may  serve  us  now. 
Sentiment  as  Science  affirms  that  the  man  who 
brings  children  into  the  world  voluntarily  assumes 
the  highest  of  all  human  responsibilities.  These 
children  were  created  by  his  will,  not  their  own, 
and  the  first  duty  which  emerges  from  their  creation 
rests  on  him,  not  them.  He  has  to  establish  his 
fatherhood,  ethically,  by  acts  of  help  and  love.  If 
he  fails  in  these,  if  by  deeds  of  cruelty  and  repres- 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  iz 

sion  he  condemns  his  own  unhappy  issue  to  misery 
and  despair,  he  has  forfeited  the  privileges  of 
human  paternity.  Now,  the  father  of  these  poor 
boys  was,  ethically,  no  father  at  all.  He  was  only 
a  strange  man  in  the  house,  wilfully  responsible 
for  all  its  daily  sorrows.  Peruse  the  record  of  his 
infamous  misdeeds  ;  turn  to  the  record  of  all  that 
his  children  suffered  at  his  hands  ;  then  ask  your- 
self if  the  crime  for  which  his  sons  were  con- 
demned was  truly  Parricide  ?  It  was  Homicide, 
truly  ;  but  it  was  only  the  homicide  of  a  strange 
man. 

Urb.   Rather  a  sentimental  view  of  the  case. 

All  The  Cant  of  Sentiment  upholds  that  father- 
hood in  blood  is  all-sufficient.  The  Science  of 
Sentiment  discovers  that  fatherhood  in  blood  may 
be  merely  the  result  of  human  selfishness,  cruelty, 
and  lust.  Those  who  bring  children  into  the 
world  are  conjuring  up  the  very  Spirit  of  Life,  and 
woe  to  them  if  that  Spirit  should  be  offended  ! 
The  day,  indeed,  is  not  far  distant  when  human 
Conscience  will  decide  that  to  increase  the  number 
of  created  beings,  heedless  of  the  responsibility 
which  comes  with  their  birth,  or  without  the  power 
and  means  to  condition  them  into  well-being,  is  a 
crime  even  worse  than  any  passionate  deed  of 
extermination. 

Urb.  Are  you  not  a  little  inconsistent  ? 
Almost  in  the  same  breath  that  you  advocate 
the  liberty  of  the  subject,  you  admit  the  necessity 

3 


34  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

of  such  legislative  restrictions  as  would  lessen  the 
liberties  resulting  in  over- population. 

All  By  no  means.  I  advocate  no  legislative 
restrictions. 

Urb.  Yet  you  fully  realize  the  baseness  of  bring- 
ing human  beings  recklessly  into  the  world,  in 
defiance  of  the  responsibility  incurred  by  so 
doing. 

All  Fully ;  but  no  legislation  can  touch  that 
baseness.  The  law  of  Nature  itself  must  rid  us  of 
it.  II  The  modern  tendency  of  Legislation  is,  on  the 
one  hand,  to  superintend  natural  processes,  and,  as 
I  have  expressed  it,  to  force,  the  work  of  evolution  ; 
land  on  the  other  hand,  by  lessening  personal 
\  responsibility,  to  preserve,  artificially,  inferior 
types^  Our  preposterous  Poor  Laws  are  not  only 
fostering  what  is  worthless,  but  destroying  that 
individual  charity  which,  like  mercy,  is  twice  blest 
'I — blessing  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes. 
Officialism  is  the  robe  of  Lazarus,  covering  a 
thousand  open  sores.  Our  poor  have  recognised 
this,  in  their  loathing  of  such  protection  as  that 
of  the  workhouse. 

Urb.  Then  you  would  have  unlimited  private 
charity,  and  unlimited  population  ? 

All  Both  should  be  regulated  by  the  moral 
growth  of  individuals.  Wise  charity  and  sympathy 
will  not  multiply  the  worthless,  by  freeing  them  of 
all  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  personal 
activity.       Unlimited  population    will   be   checked 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  35 

by  one  thing  only — the  realization  on  the  part  of 
individuals  of  moral  responsibilities.  In  other 
words,  Progress  must  move  upwards  from  the 
subject,  not  downwards  from  the  legislator.  That 
the  unnatural  motion  is  now  superseding  the 
natural  proves  the  certainty  of  my  coming  Reign 
of  Terror.  (^That  New  Terror  will,  at  least  tem- 
porarily, be  the  submergence  of  individual  freedom 
and  activity  under  the  waves  of  political  and 
social  anarchy — legislation,  if  you  like  the  name 
better,  j  Let  me  enumerate  once  more  a  few  of  its 
characteristics,  already  touched  upon  and  illus- 
trated : 

1.  Political  Tyranny  of  Majorities,  culminating 
in  Providence  made  Easy,  or  so-called  Beneficent 
Legislation. 

2.  The  Destruction  of  Personal  Rewards  and 
Punishments,  the  general  paralysis  of  Individual 
Effort. 

3.  Espionage  in  all  the  affairs  of  Life,  public  and 
private. 

4.  Trades  Unionism,  and  Supreme  Despotism  of 
the  Public  Will ;  Protection  of  the  Unfittest. 

5.  The  New  Socialism,  organizing  to  suppress 
free  action  in  all  matters  of  contract  and  personal 
activity. 

6.  The  New  Journalism,  flaunting  over  the 
grave  of  Free  Literature,  and  clothed  in  completed 
Icfnorance. 

7.  The     New    Jurisprudence,    practically    con- 

3—2 


36  THE  COMING  TERROR. 

founding  the  empirical  laws  of  expedience  with  the 
absolute  laws  of  ethics. 

8.  Moral  Sanitation,  extending  from  things 
civic  to  things  ethic  and  personal,  while  placing 
written  books  and  painted  pictures  in  the  same 
category  as  works  of  drainage  and  lighting. 

9.  The  New  Ethics,  scientific,  saturnine,  yet 
Puritanical,  and  : 

10.  The  New  Priesthood  of  Science,  regulating 
the  growth  and  development  of  the  species,  the 
freedom  and  activity  of  mankind,  by  the  arbitrary 
laws  of  empirical  and  materialistic  discovery. 

Urb.   And  the  result  ? 

All  That  of  the  Plebiscite  in  France,  of  Deutsch- 
thumm  in  Germany,  of  legislative  Tyranny  all 
over  the  world.  No  man  will  be  a  free  agent  ; 
every  man  will  find  his  life's  work  done  for  him 
by  beneficent  legislation ;  he  will  breed  according 
to  legislative  enactments  ;  he  will  be  fed,  clothed, 
and  protected,  not  by  his  own  hands,  but  out  of 
the  common  purse.  Property  of  all  descriptions 
will  be  abolished.  While  the  iron  bands  of 
Morality  will  be  drawn  tighter,  so  that  neither  man 
nor  woman  can  breathe  freely.  Morality  and 
Immorality  will  be  licensed  equally.  There  will  be 
no  books,  for  there  will  be  no  book-readers.  Life 
will  be  superintended  in  all  departments  according 
to  Acts  of  Parhament.  The  legislative  politician, 
already  the  bane  of  public  life,  will  become  the 
authorized    representative   of   organized    Anarchy. 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  37 

There  will  be  no  class  distinctions,  not  even  the 
distinction  between  wise  and  foolish,  good  and  bad, 
for  all  men  will  be  equally  wise,  good,  and  apathetic. 
Religion,  born  of  human  emotion,  fostered  by 
human  necessity,  will  become  extinct  as  the  dodo  ; 
or  if  it  survives,  will  be  dealt  with  by  the 
authorized  Inspectors  of  Lunacy.  England  will 
be  well  lighted,  well  drained,  moral,  conventional, 
an  excellently-regulated  Machine.  Prostitution, 
of  course,  will  remain,  and  War,  since  the  new 
Legislation  recognises  them  as  disagreeable  necessi- 
ties ;  but  they  also  will  be  providentially  super- 
intended. 

Urb.  Well,  after  all,  you  have  described  a 
Cosmos,  not  a  Chaos.  Anything  is  surely  better 
than  the  poverty  and  misery  which  now  surround 
us,  than  the  system  which  gives  superfluity  to  the 
rich  and  starves  the  innumerable  poor.  My  dear 
Alienatus,  I  thought  you  a  Socialist  and  a 
Radical ;  I  find  you  actually  arguing  for  the 
status  quo. 

All  That  shows  how  little  you  understand  me 
— ^how  little  you  understand  human  nature.  I 
have  defined  true  Socialism,  not  as  the  arbitrary 
will  of  those  who  would  altogether  destroy  institu- 
tions and  crush  freedom  of  individual  action,  not 
as  the  rule  of  the  Mob  and  its  mouthpiece  the 
Demagogue,  but  as  the  combination  of  free 
individuals  to  limit  general  legislation  wherever 
it    paralyzes     personal     endeavour    and    destroys 


38  THE  COMING  TERROR, 

personal  rewards.      I  am  therefore  a  true  Socialist ; 
that  is,  a  man   eager   for   the   common  good,  but 
one  who  believes  that  good  can  only  be  attained 
by  such   complete   freedom    in   life,    morality  and 
religion  as  is  compatible  with  the  general  growth 
and  welfare.      In  the  same  sense,  I  am  a  Radical ; 
but  to  be  a  Radical,  one  who  reforms  at  the  root^ 
and    not    the    branches,   is   not    to    be   a  reckless 
destroyer     of     good    and     beautiful     institutions. 
When    I    contend    contra    Professor    Huxley    for 
the   natural   freedom   and   equality  of  men,    I    do 
not   mean    that  all    men    are   equal   in   power    or 
in    intelligence — to    say    as    much    would    be  the 
height  of   folly  ;  what  I  do   mean   is  that  every 
man  has   'per   se   a   right   to    his    own    unfettered 
activities,  and  their  results,  and  that,  as  a  corollary, 
no    system    of    society    is    to    be    upheld    which 
paralyzes     these     activities     by    vested    interests 
arbitrarily    created.      I    am    for   Freedom  in    full 
measure,  but  not  for  the  Freedom  which  is  anarchic. 
As  a  member  of  the  social  organization,  I  cheer- 
fully submit    to   the    necessary    conditions    which 
make  Society   possible.     As   a   free  individual,    I 
refuse  to  submit  to  Society  in  matters  of  private 
conduct    and    private    opinion.       Legislation    may 
drain  the   street   in   which   I    dwell  ;   it   shall  not 
touch  the  faith  in  which   I   live,  or  brand  me  as 
reactionary   and    immoral  because  I   demand   free 
liberty  of  action  in  all   matters   which   do  not  in- 
fringe   on  the  liberties  of  other   free  individuals. 


THE  COMING  TERROR.  39 

No  man,  no  body  of  men,  shall  legislate  for  my 
Soul.  All  spiritual  qualities  cease  to  exist,  when 
they  cease  to  be  spontaneous.  All  conduct  ceases 
to  be  moral,  when  it  becomes  conventional — i.e., 
when  it  fails  to  represent  the  activity  and  the 
ambition  of  the  individual.  I  cannot  be  made 
good  or  bad  by  Act  of  Parliament.  Legislation 
may  convert  me  into  an  animal  mechanism  ;  but 
I  prefer  annihilation  itself  to  that  contingency. 

Urb.  And  this  new  Reign  of  Terror  ?  Do  you 
think  that  it  will  last  ? 

All  God  knows  ;  but  while  it  does  last,  every- 
where there  will  be  stagnation,  which  is  Death. 
Man,  having  deposed  the  gods,  will  have  to  reckon 
with  the  last  god.  Humanity,  that  final  apparition 
of  the  Demogorgon.  Woe  to  him,  if  in  dread  of 
the  Shape  he  sees  as  in  a  mirror,  he  becomes  his 
own  slave  !  Woe  to  him  if,  to  appease  his  thirst 
and  hunger  for  the  loaves  and  fishes  of  the  earth, 
he  sacrifices  to  Social  Despotism  the  freedom  of  his 
living  Soul  ! 


AKE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL? 
A    Controversy. 


AKE  MEN  BOEN  FKEE  AND  EQUAL  ?^ 

No  more  crowning  illustration  of  the  incapacity 
of  the  scientific  mind  to  grasp  philosophical 
propositions  could  possibly  be  found  than  the 
criticism  of  the  Socialistic  theories  of  Rousseau, 
just  published  by  Professor  Huxley  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century.  Admirably  as  he  is  equipped  for 
the  light  skirmishing  of  popular  knowledge,  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  fails  altogether  to  understand  the 
great  French  idealist,  just  as  surely  as  he  fails, 
in  his  perversion  of  Herbert  Spencer,  to  grasp  the 
meaning  of  our  greatest  English  philosopher  ;  and 
both  in  the  matter  of  his  argument  and  in  the 
manner  of  its  expression,  he  exhibits  the  logical 
insecurity  of  the  specialist  transformed  into  the 
dilettante.  Great  wisdom  and  insight,  attaining 
to  almost  prophetic  vision,  cannot  be  combated  by 
the  random  shots  of  mere  intelligence,  and  all 
the  Professors   cleverness,  all  his   liberal  culture, 

*  The  following  letters  appeared  in  the  Daily  Telegraph  in 
January  and  February,  1890.  They  originated  in  the  attempt  of 
Professor  Huxley  to  discredit  Mr.  Spencer's  theory  of  absolute 
political  ethics. 


44  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

does  not  save  him  from  the  fate  of  those  who 
criticise  great  propaganda  unsympathetically,  and 
from  the  outside.  So  serious  a  social  issue,  how- 
ever, hangs  on  the  advocacy  by  a  distinguished 
man  of  retrograde  and  anti-human  poHtical  theories, 
that  it  may  be  worth  while  to  point  out  the  fallacy, 
nay,  the  absurdity,  of  Professor  Huxley's  main 
contention. 

Nothing  is  easier,  as  we  all  know,  than  to 
ridicule  the  extravagances  into  which  Rousseau 
was  carried  by  his  discovery,  via  Hobbes  and 
Locke,  of  the  natural  equality  of  men,  by  showing 
how  his  splendid  imagination  ran  riot  among  ex- 
traordinarily fanciful  pictures  of  primitive  perfection. 
He  was  careful,  nevertheless,  to  warn  us  that  these 
pictures  were  possibly  imaginary  and  illusory — 
as  Science  has,  indeed,  proved  them  to  be — and 
were  rather  premonitions  of  what  would  be  than 
visions  of  what  had  been.  When,  however,  he 
asserted  that  men  were  born  free  and  equal,  and 
that  Civilization  had  destroyed  to  a  perilous  extent 
their  natural  freedom  and  equality,  he  never  meant 
to  say — as  Professor  Huxley  makes  him  say — 
that  the  physical  and  intellectual  faculties  of 
individuals  were  uniform  in  quality.  His  thesis 
was  a  sane  and  a  sublime  one,  already  recognised 
in  our  jurisprudence,  that  so  far  as  moral  rights 
were  concerned,  all  human  beings,  by  the  law  of 
nature,  stand  in  the  same  practical  category.  Gifts 
of  genius  and  of  insight,  although  the   birthris^ht 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  i  45 

of  individuals,  confer  no  prescriptive  rights  of  moral 
exemption  ;  they  distinguish  certain  men,  as  colour 
and  odour  distinguish  certain  flowers,  as  fleetness 
and  beauty  distinguish  certain  animals,  but  they 
do  not  free  thej^sessors  from  the  ordinary  con- 
ditions of  physical  and  moral  being,  to  which  con- 
ditions all  men  alike  are  born.  Shakespeare  the 
Seer  resembles  Hodge  the  boor  in  all  the  charac- 
teristics of  an  eating,  drinking  and  sleeping  animal, 
and,  further,  as  a  unit  in  the  body  political  and 
social.  The  two  are  equal  by  nature  in  all  the 
(^fundamental  conditions  of  life,  in  all  the  limitations 
of  human  vitality.  But  Rousseau  went  a  great  deal 
further  than  this.  He  contended  that  intellectual 
culture,  or  civilization,  so  far  from  necessarily 
improving  the  individual  man,  not  unfrequently 
led  to  moral  deterioration — a  monstrous  assump- 
tion from  the  point  of  view  of  specialists  like 
Professor  Huxley,  but  a  perfectly  tenable  one 
from  the  standpoint  of  those  who  set  instinct  and_ 
insight  above  special  acquirement.  The  history  of 
mankind,  more  particularly  the  biographies  of  great 
men,  is  full  of  incidents  which  establish  the  para- 
dox that  a  wise  man  is  frequently  a  fool,  and  that 
a  man  of  strong  reasoning  power  is  often  a  moral 
weakling.  It  is  questionable,  in  fact,  whether  the 
advance  of  the  race  in  Sociology,  in  Art,  in  Litera- 
ture, in  Science,  has  been  accompanied  with  any 
real  advance  of  the  individual — whether,  to  put 
the  issue  into  other  words,  any  amount  of  personal 


46  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

culture  renders  a  man  superior  to  his  fellows  in 
those  primary  sympathies  and  affections  which 
condition  the  lives  of  the  lordliest  and  the  least 
intelligent.  Humanity  has  doubtless  developed  in 
power  and  knowledge,  but  individual  men  remain 
very  much  what  they  have  been  from  the  begin- 
ning of  society.  To  grasp  this  point  thoroughly, 
and  to  understand  whither  the  mighty  insight  of 
Rousseau  was  directed,  we  must  understand  that 
in  the  eyes  of  the  philosopher  of  Geneva,  as  in 
those  of  the  founder  of  Christian  ethics,  moral 
qualities  were  absolute,  while  intellectual  gifts 
were  merely  relative  and  subsidiary.  Let  us  take, 
by  way  of  analogy,  one  day  of  a  great  and  wise 
man  s  life,  and  contrast  it  for  a  moment  with 
another  of  a  life  which  is  neither  great  nor 
wise. 

William  Wordsworth,  Poet  and  Recluse,  gets 
up  in  the  morning,  washes  and  dresses,  and  after 
a  walk  in  his  garden  goes  in  to  breakfast.  Reads 
the  news  from  London,  and  d,  propos  of  some  new 
production  of  Keats  or  Shelley,  avers  that  it 
'  contains  no  more  poetry  than  a  pint-pot.'  Goes 
for  a  long  walk  over  the  mountains  with  his  sister 
Dorothy,  and  being  full  of  matter  for  a  new^  poem, 
scarcely  perceives  that  his  companion  is  wearied 
out  and  waning  in  health.  Tow^ards  afternoon, 
feels  again  the  pangs  of  a  hungry  animal,  and 
returns  to  feed.  Possibly,  like  his  pet  terrier,  has 
a   little  nap  after  dinner.      Wakens,  and  listens  to 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUALS  47 

a  little  music.  Tn  the  evening,  does  his  corre- 
spondence, and  adds  a  few  touches  to  a  manuscript 
poem.  A  starrj^  night  :  he  stands  at  his  door  and 
surveys  the  constellations.  Certain  fine  thoughts 
flow  through  his  mechanism,  as  the  wind  agitating 
an  ^olian  harp.  Feels  convinced  that  there  is  a 
benevolent  Personal  God,  and  that,  on  the  whole, 
it  is  a  very  beautiful  and  excellently  regulated 
world.  Prays  to  the  Giver  of  all  Good,  and,  being 
tired  and  sleepy,  goes  to  bed  early  and  sleeps  the 
sleep  of  the  Just. 

Now,  in  all  this,  as  possibly  in  most  of  the  days 
of  other  Poets  and  Philosophers,  there  is  nothing, 
except  the  power  of  writing  fine  poetry,  to  dis- 
tinguish Wordsworth  from  the  uneducated  moun- 
tain Shepherd  who  lives  in  the  neighbourhood,  and 
who  knows  only  one  book — the  Bible  of  his 
fathers.  The  Shepherd  gets  up,  washes,  dresses, 
and  after  driving  his  flock  from  the  fold  to  their 
pasture,  either  returns  to  eat  or  feeds  on  bread 
and  cheese  on  the  mountain  side.  He  reads  no 
news,  but  meeting  some  neighbour,  hears  the  latest 
gossip  from  the  market  town.  Spends  the  day 
loafing  on  the  mountain,  and  when  he  is  hungry 
and  thirsty  eats  and  drinks  again.  If  the  weather 
is  fine,  has  a  nap  among  the  heather.  Drives  home 
his  flock  in  the  evening,  and  sits  down  for  a  smoke 
among  his  family.  Glances  out  at  the  shining  night 
and  feels — or,  possibly,  does  not  feel — a  certain 
sense  of  awe  and  loneliness.      Remembers  what  his 


48  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  .? 

father  has  taught  him,  that  there  is  a  God  up 
yonder.  Prays  to  that  God,  and  throwing  himself 
down  on  his  humble  bed,  sleeps  the  same  sleep 
as  his  neighbour  the  poet  at  Rydal  Mount. 

These  two  men  have  all  day  fulfilled  the  same 
primary  functions,  and  in  every  process  of  their 
day  there  is  more  resemblance  than  divergence  ; 
in  other  words,  the  preponderance  both  of  action 
and  feeling  is  in  favour  of  natural  equality.  '  Ah, 
but,'  cries  the  hero- worshipper,  '  you  have  left  out 
the  one  sign  distinguishing  one  from  the  other 
— that  of  superior  intelligence,  that  of  the  poetic 
gift.'  I  think  Wordsworth  himself  would  have 
been  the  first  to  admit  that,  apart  from  the  accom- 
plishment of  written  speech,  the  Shepherd's  insight, 
sympathy,  and  affections  might  have  been  fully 
equal  to  his  own ;  for  if  the  poet  of  Rydal  has 
taught  us  anything,  it  is  that  the  poor  and  un- 
instructed,  the  ignorant  of  men  and  books,  are 
among  the  most  beautiful  souls  of  Humanity.  The 
gift  of  song  is  glorious  in  a  man,  as  it  is  in  a 
nightingale,  but  it  does  not  necessarily  make  him* 
better  as  a  human  being,  and  certainly  does  not 
free  him  from  the  weaknesses  and  necessities  of  his 
human  inheritance.  Being  a  gift,  it  belongs  rather 
to  God  than  to  himself  It  certainly  gives  him  no 
privilege  of  moral  superiority. 

Be   that  as   it  may,  my  illustration  may    help 

i  fA  y  the    reader    to  understand   what_JRouaseaiL..j:jeally 

meant  when  he  proclaimed  the  natural  equalit:gLQ.f 


pi 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUALS  49 

human  beings.  [He  meant  that  men  are  born 
equal,  inasmuch  as  they  are  subject  to  the  same 
laws  and  entitled  to  the  same  advantages.  He 
meant  that  no  man,  however  powerful,  had  a  right 
to  accept  any  pleasure  which  any  other  man  might ' 
not  receive  on  the  same  terms.  He  meant  that  i 
worldly  knowledge,  including  book  knowledge,  is  at  I 
the  best  a  limited  thing,  seeing  that  all  man  knows 
is  '  that  nothing  can  be  known.'  He  meant  that 
class  distinctions,  class  prejudices,  class  pride,  class 
privileges,  are  the  merest  appropriation  of  un- 
limited selfishness,  infringing  the  rights  of  Humanity 
at  large.  He  meant  that  men  would  be  happier 
without  physical  luxury,  and  purer  without  in- 
tellectual pride.  True,  in  picturing  his  ideal  state 
he  went  too  far,  but,  going  as  far  as  he  did,  he 
reached  and  he  defined  the  limits  of  the  area  of 
social  and  political  freedom.  He  attained  the 
apogee  of  his  prophetic  life  when  he  wrote  the 
'  Savoyard  Vicar's  Prayer,'  which  embodies  the 
noblest  of  his  teaching,  and  answers  still  the  inner- 
most yearning  of  the  heart  of  Man. 

How  far  Professor  Huxlev  is  from  understand- 
ing  the  Religion  of  Equality  may  be  gathered  from 
several  of  his  own  expressions.  We  already  know 
that,  speaking  as  a  scientific  specialist,  he  rejects 
Mr.  Spencer's  masterly  definition  of  absolute 
political  ethics  ;  but  he  goes  farther,  and  finds 
nothing  absolute  in  any  ethics  whatever.  No  man 
of  philosophic  perception  could  have  affirmed  that 

4 


50  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUALS 


'  the  equality  of  men  before  God  is  an  equality  \ 
either  of  insignificance  or  of  imperfection  ;'  no  man 
jof  political  insight  could  have  suggested  that 
universal  suffrage  is  synonymous  with  Laissez  /aire, 
trofessor  Huxley  describes  himself  as  among  those 
'  who  do  not  care  for  Sentiment  and  do  care  for 
Truth,'  forgetting  that  there  is  no  real  Sentiment 
which  is  not  a  truth's  adumbration,  and  assuming, 
in  the  true  spirit  of  the  age,  that  what  is  senti- 
mental must  necessarily  be  false.  The  series  of 
questions  with  which  he  cross-examines  modern 
revoltors  on  the  thesis  that  ^  all  men  are  born 
free  and  equal,'  is  surely  a  reductio  ad  ahsurdum  of 

.r{^  the  quasi-scientific  manner. f^^o  one  ever  talked, 
^ftSiJ^  as  he  makes  his  witnesses  talk,  of  ^  the  political 
Jjuyr-     status  of  a  new-born  child,'  no  one  ever  contended 

'  that,  because  freedom  is  born  within  the    human 

flesh,  it  becomes  an  actual  factor  before  that  flesh  is 
conditioned  into  moral  intelligence.  But  it  is  when 
we  reach  the  Professor's  own  conclusions  that  we 
discover  wb^  his  derision  of  Equality  and  Freedom 
really  meansj  His  defence  of  the  status  quo,  of  the 
topsy-turvy dom  of  modern  society,  of  the  condition 
of  affairs  which  gives  Jacob  all  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  and  leaves  Esau  to  starve  in  the  wilderness, 
is  founded  on  the  plea  of  '  practical  expediencyjP— a' 
plea  on  which  even  Nero  might  have  justified  him- 
:5elf  to  what  he  termed  his  conscience  in  planning 
the  conflagration  of  Rome.  ^  There  is  much  to 
be  said,'   Professor   Huxley  thinks,    echoing   poor 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  f  51 

Carlyle,  '  for  the  opinion  that  Force,  eflfectually 
and  thoroughly  used  so  as  to  render  further 
opposition  hopeless,  establishes  an  ownership  which 
should  be  recognised  as  soon  as  possible !'  '  For 
the  welfare  of  society,  as  for  that  of  individual 
men,'  he  continues,  '  it  is  surely  essential  that  there 
should  be  a  statute  of  limitations  in  respect  of  the 
consequences  of  wrong-doing  !'  Surely  here  we 
have  teaching  worthier  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Wild  than 
of  a  popular  professor  in  a  State  whose  very 
religion  is  founded  on  the  a  ijriori  assumptions  he 
despises.  Science  itself  should  have  instructed 
Professor  Huxley,  just  as  surely  as  Religion  does 
its  votaries,  that  the  penalties  of  wrong-doing  are 
exacted  even  to  the  uttermost  generation.  Is 
there  a  statute  of  limitations  to  the  law  of  heredity, 
to  the  law  by  which  the  sins  and  follies  of  the 
fathers  are  visited  upon  their  children  ?  if  no  such 
statute  prevails  in  the  physical,  why  should  it  do 
so  in  the  social  and  political  worlds  ?  Only  one 
thing  can  cure  evil,  and  that  is  the  destruction  of  it 
at  any  cost,  at  any  sacrifice.  So  long  as  it  exists 
it  is  a  canker  and  a  curse.  Assume  that  our  social 
system  is  founded  on  wrong-doing — and  Professor 
Huxley  has  admitted  it — by  what  possible  standard 
of  ethics  would  he  keep  it  permanent  ?  Because 
it  '  exists,'  and  because,  since  it  exists,  it  is 
'  expedient.'  Talk  of  the  '  sham  sentiment '  of 
Rousseau  ;  it  becomes  sublime  doctrine  by  the 
side  of  the  sham  reason  of  his  critic,  who,  while 

4 — 2 


52  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

scorning  and  despising  the  gospel  of  Laissez  faire,  in 
the  same  breath  preaches  the  essence  of  that  gospel ! 
In  a  second  letter  I  will,  with  your  permission, 
endeavour  to  explain  more  fully  than  is  at  present 
possible  the  ethical  standpoint  of  those  propa- 
gandists who,  in  suggesting  crucial  reforms  of  our 
present  social  and  political  systems,  base  their 
arguments  on  the  absolute  principle  of  the  natural 
freedom  and  equality  of  men, 

I  am,  etc., 

Robert  Buchanan. 

[To  the  above  letter  Professor  Huxley  first 
replied  as  follows,  but  in  the  meantime  an  editorial 
article  had  appeared  commenting  somewhat  ad- 
versely on  my  suggestions.] 

To  the  Editor  of  the  'Daily  Telegraph' 

Sir, 

I  have  read  Mr.  Robert  Buchanan's  letter, 
which  has  been  kindly  sent  to  me.  I  would  not 
on  any  account  interfere  with  so  characteristic  a 
development  of  latter-day  Rousseauism — so  many 
people  fancy  that  it  is  dead  and  buried,  and  that  I 
have  wasted  my  time  in  slaying  ihe  slain. 
I  am,  faithfully  yours, 

T.   H.   Huxley. 
3,  Jevington  Gardens,  Eastbourne, 
January  24. 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL?  53 

To  the  Editor  of  the  '  Daily  Telegraph.' 

Sir, 

I  had  hoped,  in  the  present  discussion, 
to  avoid  current  poHtics  altogether  ;  for  it  is  im- 
possible to  touch  on  political  issues — especially  in 
the  columns  of  a  daily  newspaper  —  without 
awakening  a  storm  of  prejudice  and  misunder- 
standing. I  shall  still  endeavour  to  steer  clear 
of  contemporary  broils,  although  your  own  com- 
ments on  my  first  letter  do  certainly  invite 
polemical  treatment.  Will  you  permit  me  to  say, 
however,  that  I  am  more  astonished  at  your  indi- 
rect championship  of  the  doctrines  of  expediency 
than  at  your  quite  irrelevant  diatribe  on  the  per- 
sonal character  and  conduct  of  Rousseau  ?  Per- 
haps, however,  you  do  not  quite  realize  that  your 
attack  is  less  upon  the  religion  of  modern  Socialism 
than  upon  the  Creed  of  Christianity  itself?  The 
strongest,  or,  at  any  rate,  the  most  accepted, 
argument  against  that  creed  has  been  that 
it  is,  although  theoretically  excellent,  practically 
impossible.  Society  has  refused  from  time  im- 
memorial to  be  ruled  in  the  conduct  of  life  by 
either  its  principles  or  its  precepts.  Men  hoard 
up  riches  in  this  world,  and  when  one  cheek  is 
smitten  they  do  not  offer  the  other.  They  pray 
in  the  Temple,  but  they  curse  and  cheat  in  the 
market-place.  Interrogated  on  this  inconsistency, 
they     explain    that    adherence    to     the    absolute 


54  ^RE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  1 

tenets  of  their  religion  would  be  suicidal.  Even 
some  of  our  most  Christian  teachers  have  pro- 
tested that  the  Christ  was  too  superhuman,  too 
transcendently  impolitic,  to  be  followed  quite  all 
the  way  along  the  thorny  path  of  self-abnegation. 
So  that  when  you  say  that  Rousseau's  doctrine 
is  refuted  at  every  point  by  the  facts  of  life,  you 
should  add  that  Christianity  also  is  so  refuted  ; 
and  you  would  be,  from  the  political  and  histo- 
rical point  of  view,  perfectly  right.  The  Founder 
of  Christianity,  however,  carefully  distinguished 
between  the  adherence  we  may  find  it  expedient 
to  give  to  Caesar  and  that  higher  adherence  we 
must  give  to  God.  He  paused  at  first  principles 
and  went  no  further,  hoping  against  hope  that 
those  first  principles  were  seeds  which  would  grow 
surely  in  the  conscience  of  humanity.  ^  Love  one 
another'  was  his  highest  and  holiest  admo- 
nition— one  which  we,  in  this  Christian  country, 
carry  out  by  allowing  wealth  to  accumulate  and 
men  to  decay  ;  by  permitting,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  deer  forests  of  Scotland,  the  accidental 
wealth  of  one  or  two  men  to  mean  the  destruction 
and  expatriation  of  thousands ;  by  suffering,  as 
in  Ireland,  a  landlordism  without  even  the  excuse 
of  capital,  to  drive  a  whole  Nation  into  despair 
and  into  crime. 

You  ask  me,  naturally  enough,  if  somewhat 
flippantly,  to  name  those  absolute  ethical  prin- 
ciples on  which  I  and  far  more  able  propagandists 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?         55 


would  base  the  reconstruction  of  Society,  while  at 
the  same  time  you  seek  to  stultify  my  advocacy 
by  suggesting  that  it  is  doubtless  purely  senti- 
mental, and  must  conflict  on  every  side  with  the 
results  of  daily  experience.  Now,  it  would  be  idle 
as  well  as  impertinent  for  me,  at  the  very  time 
when  the /sanest  and  clearest  intellect  known  to 
us  at  present  on  this  planet '  has  occupied  itself 
with  the  exposition  of  absolute  principles  in  ethics 
(to  the  great  mental  confusion  of  scientific  Philistia 
and  Professor  Huxley),  to  attempt  in  my  perfunc- 
tory way  to  define  those  principles.  For  their 
definition  I  must  refer  you  to  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer'svmore  recent  writings — luminous  as  aE 
that  comes  from  that  crystal  pen,  unanswerable  as 
most  of  the  arguments  that  come  from  that 
master  mind.^  Mr.  Spencer  himself  has  told  us, 
in  words  of  dignified  remonstrance,  that  his  expo-  \ 
sition  has  been  misunderstood  and  perverted  at 
every  point  by  Professor  Huxley  ;  and  so,  if  we 
examine  the  matter  closely,  we  shall  find  the  case 
to  be.  Mine  is  a  far  humbler  task,  to  explain  as 
far  as  possible  to  the  hasty  readers  of  a  great 
daily  newspaper,  in  as  clear  and  popular  language 
as  is  at  my  command,  a  few  simple  points  of  that 
propagandism  which  proposes  to  redress  centuries 
of  wrongdoing,  and  possibly  to  reconstruct 
society. 

One   word,   before    I    proceed,  concerning  your 
own  estimate  of  the  teachings  of  Rousseau,  which 


56  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL? 

estimate  varies  little,  if  at  all,  from  that  of  Pro- 
fessor Huxley.      Forgetful  altogether  that  I  began 
by  agreeing  with  Rousseau  on  the  subject  of  first 
principles,    and    not     by    approving    the     hastily- 
designed   political   and    social  structure    he    based 
upon  them,  you  resort  to  the  stereotyped  mode  of 
polemics,  that  of  attacking  the  great  doctrinaire's 
personal   character.       Here,  however,  you   uncon- 
sciously support   my  main   thesis — that  great  in- 
tellect   has    little   or    nothing    to    do    with    moral 
goodness,  and  that  Rousseau,  in  much  of  his  conduct, 
was  a   sort   of    philosophical  Jack   Shepherd.      It 
should    be  remembered,  however,    that    Rousseau 
made  no  concealment  whatever  of  his  moral  dis- 
temperature    and   social    larcenies ;    that  standing, 
as  he  expressed  it,  before  the  Judgment  Seat,  he 
made   a  clean  breast  of  his  sins  and  weaknesses, 
whereas   most    other    men    have    chosen   to    hide, 
rather    than    to    discover,    their    moral    littleness. 
While  I  doubt  the  expediency  of  such  revelations, 
I  believe  them  to  have  been  made  in  all  sincerity, 
and  I  am  also  quite  sure  that   the  record  of  most 
men,  if  so  made  public,  would  shock  propriety  as 
much  as  the  record  of  Rousseau.      The  one  charge 
which  you    revive  against    the    husband    of   poor 
Therese — that  of   abandoning  his  children  to  the 
foundling     basket — is,     though     horrible     enough, 
capable  of  some  defence,  in   so  much  as  the  sup- 
pression of  personal  instincts  it   involves  is   quite 
consistent   with   the   theory  that   the   care  of  off- 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL!  57 

Spring  should  devolve  upon  the  community  at 
large.  It  is  superfluous,  however,  to  extenuate 
the  conduct  of  a  man  who  was  in  the  private 
concerns  of  life  scarcely  a  sane  agent,  who  was 
swept  into  endless  folly  and  inconsistency  by  sheer 
force  of  temperament.  For  the  rest,  the  good 
old  fallacy  resuscitated  by  you,  that  Rousseau  was 
personally  responsible  for  the  excesses  of  the  Re- 
volution, was  killed  and  buried  long  ago.  The 
Revolution  was  the  direct  consequence  of  the 
wrong-doing  of  Society,  causing  the  collapse  of  an 
ancient  and  effete  political  system,  and  had  little 
or  nothing  to  do,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  with 
literature.  It  came  from  the  masses  who  had 
never  learned  to  read,  and  who  sought  not  books, 
but  bread.  Rousseauism,  and  all  the  other  '  isms ' 
of  the  pre-Revolutionary  period,  were  the  amuse- 
ment of  the  aristocracy  of  culture,  and  were  to  the 
masses  of  the  French  nation,  previous  to  the  pro- 
mulgation of  certain  catchwords  by  the  leaders  of 
the  national  movement,  about  as  intelligible  as 
double  Dutch.  You  suggest,  moreover,  that  the 
points  which  I  mention  as  illustrative  of  Rous- 
seau's insight  are  mere  *  truisms '  which  no  one 
denies  or  ever  did  deny,  and  that  the  really 
important  matter  in  Rousseau's  teaching  is  the 
constructive  portion  of  the  '  Social  Contract.'  Had 
this  been  so  Rousseau  would  have  been  forgotten 
long  ago.  It  was  his  perception  of  those  very 
*  truisms  '  which  made  him  a  Prophet  and  a  Seer. 


58  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

It  is  his  insight  into  first  principles  which  makes 
him  Hving  to  this  hour. )  How  many  of  us  admit 
even  now,  or  prove  by  their  conduct  to  their 
fellows,  that  moral  goodness  is  better  than  intel- 
lectual power  ?  How  many  of  us  feel  in  our 
hearts  and  illustrate  in  our  lives  that  luxury  and 
pride,  arrogance  of  knowledge  or  of  birth,  are  evil 
things  ?  How  many  of  us  proclaim  that  the  war 
between  nations,  like  the  war  between  individuals, 
daily  mocks  the  commandment  which  said,  '  Thou 
shalt  not  kill '?  Truisms,  say  you  ?  Truisms  to 
which  almost  every  institution  of  our  society,  every 
glory  of  our  civilization,  gives  the  lie  ;  truisms  In 
the  teeth  of  which  a  successful  soldier  may  rise  up 
and  recommend  to  us,  as  General  Wolseley  did 
the  other  day,  the  example  of  a  nation  of  atheists 
and  martinets  as  one  worthy  of  English  imitation  ; 
truisms  which  no  one  practically  admits  to  be  true  ; 
truisms  which,  when  advanced  to  justify  the  enthu- 
siasm of  Humanity,  you  and  other  publicists  smile 
at,  and  relegate  to  the  regions  of  sentimental 
superstition.  Why,  Christianity  itself  has  become 
a  truism — a  fetish  to  swear  by  when  we  rob  our 
neighbour  and  corrupt  our  neighbour's  wife.  Its 
excellent  moral  principles  are  admitted,  even  by 
those  who  dismiss  its  dogmas,  as  so  firmly  estab- 
lished as  scarcely  to  be  worth  discussion.  What  I 
and  other  propagandists  want,  however,  is  for  that 
religion,  which  is  essentially  the  religion  of  equahty, 
to  be  tried  in  practice.      It  has  never  been  tried 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  .?  59 

yet,  save  by  a  few  isolated  individuals  from  Father 
Damien  backwards.  Who  knows  but  that,  after 
all,  it  might  serve  ;  that  it  might  be  better  at 
any  rate  than  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Printer's 
Devil  and  St.  Mammon's  current  Epistle  to  the 
Philistines  ?  Who  knows  but  that,  with  a  little 
scientific  adjustment,  it  might  prove  almost  as 
practicable  as  the  political  creed  which  tells  us 
that  the  status  quo  of  the  Impenitent  Thief,  who 
still  holds  the  plunder  his  ancestor  stole,  is  to  be 
respected  and  consolidated,  according  to  a  certain 
'  statute  of  limitations  '? 

The  true  political  problem,  placed  before  them- 
selves by  those  propagandists  who,  like  myself,  are 
Socialists  only  in  the  good  and  philosophical  sense, 
and  who  are  not,  like  mere  Communists,  enemies 
of  all  vested  interests  whatsoever,  is  to  regenerate 
Society  without  destroying  that  part  of  its  str 
ture  which  experience  proves   to   be   sound.      The, 
principle  that  men  are  born   free  and  equal  does 
not  imply,  as  its  opponents  frequently  suggest,  tha 
absolute  intellectual    equality  is   possible,    or   tha 
men,  being   free,   are   free  to  do   exactly  as  the} 
please  ;  it  merely  means,  as  I  have  said,  that  each 
unit  of  society  has  equal  rights  of  membership,  and 
complete  liberty  of  action  within  the  scope  of  the 
common    organization.      Absolute   individual    free 
dom  is  of   course    impossible,    as   citizenship,    i.e. 
equality  and  fraternity,  implies  due  recognition  of 
the  rights  of  others.      The  difficulty,  then,  is  howl 


6o  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

to  adjust  the  relations  of  human  beings  in  such  a ' 
manner  as  to  secure  the  utmost  amount  of  Hberty 
and  equaUty  possible.  While  the  degrees  of 
power  and  wealth  can  never  be  exactly  the  same,  | 
and  while  due  allowance  should  be  made  for ; 
the  rewards  of  individual  energy  and  industry, 
care  should  be  taken  that  the  accumulation  of 
power  and  wealth  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion should  not  lead  to  the  aggrandizement  of 
one  class  at  the  expense  of  another,  or  to  the 
security  of  any  one  individual  through  the  social 
destruction  of  any  of  his  fellows.  This  means,; 
translated  into  other  words,  that  the  rights  of 
acquired  property  are  subservient  to  those  of  the 
general  prosperity  ;  that  such  luxury  as  an  indivi- 
dual possesses  in  excess  of  his  rational  needs  is 
conditioned  by  the  destruction  of  certain  other 
individuals  to  whom  that  luxurv  might  have  pro- 
vided the  necessaries  of  life.^  Here  we  reach, 
without  turning  aside  into  a  very  difficult  region 
of  political  economy,  a  first  great  principle — that 
every  working  member  of  society  has  a  right  to 
a  share  of  those  necessaries  which  alone  make 
existence  possible.  Can  it  be  argued,  in  the  face 
of  the  statistics  of  existing  poverty,  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  daily  and  hourly  shipwreck  of 
human  lives,  that  the  necessaries  of  life  are  so 
distributed  ? 

Here,  again,  we  touch  one  of  those   '  truisms ' 
which    everyone  admits,   but  few  or  no    men  act 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  6i 

upon  ;  and  we  shall  find,  indeed,  that  each  prin- 
ciple of  just  Socialism  is  in  the  nature  of  a  truism. 
We  have  already  learned,  however,  contra  Rous- 
seau, that  social  freedom  is  limited,  unlike  natural 
or  moral  freedom,  which  is  absolute.  Certain  ' 
rights  of  property  would  still  remain  intact,  under 
any  disintegration  caused  by  the  first  principle,  or 
truism,  already  named.  '  I  do  not  want  to  touch 
your  treasures,'  said  even  Robespierre,  'however 
impure  their  source.  I  am  far  more  anxious  to 
make  poverty  honourable  than  to  proscribe  wealth; 
the  thatched  roof  of  Fabricius  need  never  envy 
the  palace  of  Croesus.' 

^  The  second  principle  which  I  would  name,  as  f 
founded  on  the  natural  freedom  and  equality  of 
men,  is  equal  freedom  of  opportunity.  This  free- 
dom is  being  to  a  large  extent  secured  by  the 
spread  of  national  education,  since  no  man  can 
fulfil  the  rights  of  citizenship  to  whom  social 
neglect  and  selfishness  have  denied  the  very  voca- 
bulary of  civilization.  It  is  possibly  impracticable' 
at  present  that  every  man  should  have  exactly  the| 
same  start  in  life,  the  same  chance  of  securing 
social  prosperity;  but  what  the  Socialist  propagan- 
dum  demands  is  some  sort  of  approximation  of  I 
starts  and  chances.  The  present  arbitrary  division 
of  classes  is  founded  on  an  arrangement  which 
overworks  and  denies  rational  leisure  to  large 
classes  of  the  community  in  order  that  other 
classes   may    '  eat,    drink,   and  be   merry.'      Equal 


62  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 


[  freedom  of  opportunity,  then,  means  just  distribu- 
tion of  labour — means  that  Society  should  not  be 
divided  into  idlers  and  drones,  that  all  men  should 
share  to  a  certain  extent  in  the  practical  work  of 
the  woi^dj  Is  this  the  case  ?  In  the  face  of  the 
ignorance  and  misery  of  our  labouring  classes,  of 
the  lives  blackened  out  of  human  likeness  by  cruel 
and  endless  toil,  of  our  sempstresses  spinning  out 
the  thin  thread  of  life  for  a  few  pence,  can  any 
sane  man  suggest  that  freedom  of  opportunity  is, 
under  our  present  social  system,  possible  ?  | 

True,  there  will  always  be  idlers,  and  possibly, 
until  the  Millennium,  there  will  always  be  drones. 
The  problem  of  the  higher  Socialism  is  to  limit 
the  number  of  both,  by  rendering  the  prizes  and 
the  honours  of  civilization  open  to  all.  How  to 
solve  that  problem?  Surely  we  should  go  a  long- 
way  to  its  solution  if  we  averaged  the  hours  of 
leisure  to  all  men,  and  so  recognised  that  want  of 
rest  is  as  certain  a  sign  of  pauperization  as  want  of 
bread. 

Here,  perhaps  you  say,  is  a  manifest  contra- 
diction, since  I  postulated  in  my  first  letter  that 
natural  freedom  and  equality  were,  being  absolute, 
j  altogether  independent  of  relative  culture  or  in- 
I  tellectual  acquirement.  What  I  did  say  was  in  no 
sense  contradictory,  being  merely  that  intellectual 
culture  did  not  necessarily  imply  moral  advance. 
For  a  state  of  natural  freedom  and  equality,  how- 
ever,   the    primary    vocabulary    of    civilization    is 


ARE  MEN-  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  6^ 

essential.  A.  blind  man  cannot  see  the  sun,  and  a 
man-beast  of  burthen  cannot  perform  the  rational 
duties  of  society.  I  contended,  however,  that  the 
accumulation  of  mere  knowledge  meant  nothing, I 
morally  speaking — indeed,  knowledge  is  specialism, 
and  is  only  valuable  i^  so  far  as  it  discovers 
those  laws  which  become  the  common  property 
of  all.  Thomas  Carlyle  would  certainly  be  called 
a  man  of  culture,  of  wide  and  phenomenal  informa- 
tion, quite  apart  from  his  quasi-prophetic  faculty  ; 
yet  what  was  the  culture  worth  which  led  him  to 
rail  against  all  mankind,  and  to  revenge  the  natural 
freedom  and  equality  of  a  troublesome  liver  by 
abusino'  the  world  at  larofe  ?  To  St.  Thomas  of 
Chelsea,  the  nigger  was  '  a  servant '  by  grace  of 
God ;  Macaulay,  a  '  squat,  low-browed,  common- 
place object ';  Coleridge,  a  ^  weltering,  ineffectual 
being  ';  Wordsworth,  a  ^  small  diluted  contempti- 
bility ';  Keble,  of  the  '  Christian  Year,'  a  '  little 
ape,'  and  Keats's  poems  ^  dead  dog ';  Charles  Lamb, 
a  '  detestable  abortion ';  Grote,  a  person  with 
a  '  spout  mouth ';  Cardinal  Newman,  one  with- 
out ^  the  intellect  of  a  moderate-sized  rabbit '; 
Mr.  Gladstone,  '  one  of  the  contemptiblest  men, 
a  spectral  kind  of  phantasm ';  and  Mill,  his  dear 
friend  Mill,  a  ^  frozen-out  logic-chopping  machine.', 
'^^True,  great  genius  is  great  wisdom,  and  from  this 
point  of  view  great  genius  is  very  rare.  Yet  who 
can  help  thinking,  in  glancing  over  the  lives  of  our 
cleverest  and  greatest  men,  that  increase  in  special 


64  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

knowledge  too  often  means  increase  in  obtusity,  in 
folly  ?  Even  the  gentle  Darwin,  a  soul  at  peace 
with  all  men,  and  wise,  surely,  in  his  generation,  has 
told  us  that  the  only  imaginative  delight  of  his  age 
(when  all  his  splendid  faculties  still  remained 
intact)  was  to  read  trashy  novels,  that  he  ^  hated ' 
Shakespeare,  and  that  to  turn  to  a  play  of  Shake- 
speare  '  made  him  sick  1'  Reading  these  records  of 
men,  justly  esteemed  for  their  power  and  know- 
ledge, one  is  almost  disposed  to  exclaim,  with 
Voltaire,  that  ^  the  good  folk  who  have  no  fixed 
principles  on  the  nature  of  things,  who  do  not  know 
what  is,  but  know  very  well  what  is  not,  these  are 
our  true  philosophers.' 

To  illustrate  all  the  principles  which  the  higher 
Socialism  accepts  as  absolute  would  be  utterly 
impossible  in  the  space  of  a  newspaper  letter.  I 
will  mention  only  one  other,  of  the  most  paramount 
I  importance  at  the  present  juncture.  A  corollary 
'  of  the  thesis  that  men  are  born  free  and  equal, 
morally  speaking,  is  the  certainty  that  no  un- 
necessary or  arbitrary  limits  should  be  made  to 
freedom  of  private  action  and  private  conduct. 
•\  Mr.  Spencer  has  pointed  out,  w^ith  his  own  un- 
equalled lucidity,  the  dangers  which  Society  is  at 
present  running  from  over-legislation  in  matters 
social.  The  tendency  of  even  modern  philan- 
thropy is  to  class  groups  of  men  and  women  in 
comfortable  pigeonholes,  and  to  arrange  for  them 
down   to    the   smallest  details    the    functions    and 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL?  65 

duties  of  life  ;    and   Science  itself,  like  a  gigantic 
Mrs.   Pardiggle,    is  assuming   the  airs   of  a  social 
censor    and    peripatetic    district-visitor.       Heaven 
forbid  that  the   services    which   true    Science   has 
done  to  spread  the  common  particles  of  Light,  and 
to  remedy  human  ignorance  and  human  wretched- 
ness,   should    be    overlooked    or    forgotten !     But 
moral  legislation  based  on  empirical  knowledge,  like 
religious  legislation  based  on  barren  dogma,  may  go 
too   far.      Talking  the   other  day   with  a  London 
physician  of  great  experience,  and  in  full  sympathy 
with  the  scientific  reorganization  of  society,  I  was 
surprised  to  hear  him  express  the  opinion  that  the 
^  model '  dwellings  prepared  for  the  working  classes 
had  been  far  from  an  unmixed  blessing  ;  that  they 
were  comfortless  and  cheerless  for  beings  who  were 
often   unable  to  provide   necessary  food  and  fuel, 
and   that  they  destroyed   in   a  great  measure  the 
sense  of  personal  independence.      Elsewhere,  indeed, 
we  are  threatened  no  longer,  as  of  old,  with  the 
religious  tyranny  of  the  Priest,  but  with  the  pre- 
sumption   of    the     moral    and     social    Legislator. 
County  Councils,  Vigilance  Committees,  Societies 
for   moral   sanitation,   have   encroached    upon    the 
liberty  of  the  subject,  even  to  the  extent  of  deter- 
mining what  he  may  read  and  know.      Not  content 
with  regulating  his  physical  well-being,  they  have 
endeavoured  to  regulate  the  amount  of  Light  and 
Knowledge  he  may  enjoy  ;  and  hence  the  death- 
less bigotry  of  English  Puritanism,  collaborating  in 

5 


66  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUALl 

despair  with  the  new-born  bigotry  of  scientific 
discovery,  is  limiting  human  freedom  in  almost 
every  walk  of  life. 

I  have  named  three  principles,  on  the  triumph 
or  failure  of  which  depends  the  future  of  Society  : 
equal  freedom  to  share  the  necessaries  of  life, 
equal  freedom  of  opportunity  to  advance,  equal 
freedom  to  shape  individual  thought  and  action 
within  the  necessary  limitations  of  political  organ- 
ization. If  the  status  quo  admits  these  principles, 
and  if  they  are  allowed  free  scope  of  activity,  then 
nothing  more  is  to  be  said.  The  higher  Socialism 
contends  that  they  may  be  recognised  generally, 
even  as  *  truisms,'  but  that,  in  most  of  the  affairs 
of  life,  in  nearly  all  its  practical  conduct,  they  are 
entirely  disregarded.  Large  bodies  of  the  com- 
munity have  practically  no  food  to  eat,  no  freedom 
to  earn  even  common  sustenance ;  still  larger 
classes,  though  they  may  gain  the  common  neces- 
saries of  life,  are,  by  the  cruelty  of  their  labour  for 
bare  bread  and  from  the  pressure  of  the  organiza- 
tion around  them,  forbidden  the  opportunity  to 
advance  a  single  step  ;  and  classes  even  yet  larger 
are,  by  the  spirit  of  temporizing  and  compromising 
(approved  as  we  have  seen  by  even  scientists  like 
Professor  Huxley),  denied  the  natural  freedom  of 
human  beings,  on  the  plea  that,  under  a  political 
*  statute  of  limitations,'  the  force  originally  founded 
I  on  wrong-doing  ought  to  be  respected  ! 

Well,  Rousseau's   sublime   paradox   still   holds  : 


ARE  MEiV  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  67 


'  Man  is  born  free,  and  everywhere  he  is  in  chains.' 
It  is  jiseless,  or  it  seems  useless,  to  argue  against 

those who,     hke     Professor     Huxley    and    your 

wandering-witted  '  Hereditary  Bondsman,'  contend 
that  the  freedom  and  equality  of  Nature  means 
(what  it  was  never  supposed  even  by  Rousseau 
to  mean)  that  all  men  are  alike,  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  differentiation  of  power  or  character, 
and  that  one  man,  however  degraded  and  un- 
instructed,    is    as    good    as    any    other.       This    is 


merely  the  reductio  ad  ahsurdum  (very  useful  to 
the  holders  of  vested  interests)  of  the  argument 
which  proves  that  every  member  of  the  community 
has  a  born  right  to  share  the  common  benefits  and 
privileges  of  Humanity  ;  that,  in  other  words, 
neither  the  aristocracy  of  power  nor  the  aristocracy 
of  culture  is  entitled,  beyond  the  necessities  of  the 
common  preservation,  to  limit  the  action  of  human 
freedom,  human  enjoyment,  and  human  opportunity. 
Men  advance  more  surely  by  freedom  than  by 
restraint,  necessary  as  certain  restraints  may  be. 
Before  the  outbreak  of  the  English  Revolution, 
personal  prerogative,  the  arbitrary  will  of  one 
sincere  political  bigot,  had  strangulated  English 
Liberty.  Englishmen  arose  en  masse ,  and  Liberty, 
in  the  political  sense,  was  saved.  Before  the 
outbreak  of  the  great  French  Revolution, 
Catholicism  had  almost  destroyed  the  conscience 
of  a  great  Nation.  The  inevitable  cataclysm  came, 
with  what  terrible  accompaniments   we  all  know. 

5—2 


68 '         ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

At  the  present  hour,  at  the  very  time  when  the 
free  thought  of  England  is  at  its  brightest  and 
best,  when  the  scientific  and  historic  methods  have 
disintegrated  the  whole  mass  of  religious  super- 
stition, another  great  upheaval  is  imminent,  to  the 
peril,  perhaps  the  destruction,  of  our  whole  social 
system. 

*  Le  pass6  n'esb  pour  nous  qu'un  triste  souvenir  ; 
Le  present  est  affit-ux,  s'il  n'est  point  d'avenir, 
Si  la  nuit  dii  tombeau  d^truit  I'^tre  qui  pense.' 

So  sang  Voltaire.  A  colossal  Hand,  which  some 
call  the  hand  of  Destiny  and  others  that  of 
Humanity,  is  putting  out  the  lights  of  Heaven 
one  by  one,  like  candles  after  a  feast.  It  behoves 
us,  then,  to  watch  heedfuUy  that  the  same  Hand, 
having  emptied  the  heavens,  does  not  touch  the 
lowly  but  life-illumining  lights  of  Earth.  The 
fairest  of  these  lights  is  Liberty,  is  the  principle 
of  natural  freedom  and  equality,  without  whicL 
individual  growth  would  be  impossible,  and  socia 
organization,  as  men  now  understand  it,  an  im- 
possibility. 

I  am,  etc., 

Robert  Buchanan. 

P.S. — Some  idea  of  the  absurdities  of  Over- 
legislation  may  be  gathered  from  the  regulations 
of  Saint  Just,  quoted  in  Yon  Sybel's  '  History 
of  the  French  Revolution  '  :  No  servants,  no  gold 
and  silver  utensils,  no  child   under   sixteen  to  eat 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUALS  69 


meat,  nor  any  adult  to  eat  meat  on  three  days  of 
the  decade  ;  boys  at  the  age  of  seven  to  be  handed 
over  to  the  national  school,  where  they  will  be 
taught  to  speak  little,  to  endure  hardships,  and  to 
train  for  war  ;  divorce  to  be  free  to  all ;  friendship 
ordained  a  public  institution,  every  citizen  on 
attaining  majority  being  bound  to  proclaim  his 
friends,  and  if  he  had  none,  to  be  banished  ;  if 
any  one  committed  a  crime,  his  friends  were  to  be 
banished,  etc.  This,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  the 
Code  of  Nature  with  a  vengeance  ! 

[My  second   letter   caused  Professor  Huxley  to 
break  his  vow  of  silence,  and  answer  as  follows  :] 

To  the  Editor  of  the  ^  Daily  Telegraph.^ 

Sir, 

I  have  already  offered  a  cordial  welcome  to 
Mr.  Robert  Buchanan  on  the  occasion  of  his  debut 
in  the  theatre  of  political  speculation  ;  and  the 
sincerity  of  my  wish  that  he  may  continue  to 
exhibit  the  results  of  the  poetic  method,  in  its 
application  to  the  dry  facts  of  natural  and  civil 
history,  is  nowise  affected  by  the  circumstance  that 
he  considers  me  to  be  an  advocate  of  '  retrograde 
and  anti-human  political  theories,'  a  defender  '  of 
the  topsy-turveydom  of  modern  society,'  and, 
altogether,  a  scientific  Philistine  of  the  worst 
description. 


70  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

I  do  not  address  you  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
bating these  opinions,  or  even  to  set  forth  some 
pleas  for  mercy  which  might  weigh  in  my  favour 
with  any  judge  less  confident  of  his  competency. 
I  would  not  even  be^so  indecent  as  to  linger  too 
long  on  this  side  of  annihilation  ;  but,  unless  I 
be  worse  than  other  criminals,  I  trust  you  will 
permit  me  to  send  a  few  words  to  the  scattered 
remnant  of  the  people  in  whose  minds  the  ana  - 
thema  just  fulminated  has  not  extinguished  any 
little  credit  I  may  have  hitherto  possessed.  It 
appears  that  there  are  '  three  principles  on  the 
triumph  or  failure  of  which  depends  the  future 
of  society  :  equal  freedom  to  share  the  necessaries 
of  life  ;  equal  freedom  of  opportunity  to  advance  ; 
equal  freedom  to  shape  individual  thought  and 
action  within  the  necessary  limitations  of  political 
organization.  If  the  status  quo  admits  these 
principles,  and  if  they  are  allowed  free  scope  of 
activity,  then  nothing  more  is  to  be  said.' 

Now,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  political  principles 
of  which  I  have  been  a  tolerably  active  advocate 
all  my  life,  and  of  which  I  hope  to  remain  an 
advocate  so  long  as  I  have  the  power  to  speak 
or  write,  may  be  expressed,  though  somewhat 
clumsily,  by  just  these  words.  Perhaps  I  deceive 
myself,  but  it  really  is  my  impression  that  I  am 
hardly  open  to  the  charge  of  having  failed  to 
assert  freedom  of  thought  and  action  any  time 
these  five-and-thirty  years.      Unless  I  am  dream- 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  1  71 

ing,  I  have  done  what  lay  in  my  power  to  promote 
those  measures  of  pubHc  education  which  afford 
the  best  of  opportunities  for  advancement  to  the 
poorer  members  of  society  ;  and  that  in  the  teeth 
of  bitter  opposition  on  the  part  of  fanatical 
adherents  of  the  political  philosophy  which  Mr. 
Buchanan  idolizes,  the  consistent  application  of 
which  reasoned  savagery  to  practice  would  have 
left  the  working  classes  to  fight  out  the  struggle 
for  existence  among  themselves,  and  bid  the  State 
to  content  itself  with  keeping  the  ring. 

As  to  equal  freedom  to  share  the  necessaries  of 
life,  I  really  was  not  aware  that  anybody  is,  or 
can  be,  refused  that  freedom.  ^  If  a  man  has  any- 
thing to  offer  in  exchange  for  a  loaf  which  the 
baker  thinks  worth  it,  that  loaf  will  certainly  be 
given  to  him  ;  but  if  he  has  nothing,  then  it  is  not 
I,  but  the  extreme  Individualists,  who  will  say  that 
he  may  starve.  If  the  State  relieves  his  necessi- 
ties, it  is  not  I  but  they  who  say  it  is  exceeding 
its  powers  ;  if  private  charity  succours  the  poor 
fellow,  it  is  not  I  but  they  who  reprove  the  giver 
for  interfering  with  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
Logically  enough,  they  ask.  Why  preserve  Nature's 
failures  ?  That  a  philosophy  of  which  these  are 
the  unvarnished  results  should  rouse  a  humanitarian 
enthusiast,  whose  sincerity  is  beyond  question,  to 
be  its  champion  is  singular ;  though  not  more 
singular  than  the  vilipending  of  Saint  Just  for 
*  What,  no  one  ? 


72  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 


over-legislation,  by  a  worshipper  of  Rousseau.  An 
ingrained  habit  of  scientific  grovelling  among  facts 
has  led  me  to  the  conclusion  that  Jacobin  Over- 
legislation  was  a  direct  consequence  of  Rousseauism. 
These  gentlemen  guillotined  the  people  who  did 
not  care  to  be  free  and  equal  and  brotherly  in  their 
fashion.  If  anyone  doubt  the  fact,  I  would  advise 
him  to  read  M.  Taine's  volume  on  the  '  Jacobin 
Conquest  of  France,'  which  is  all  the  more  inter- 
esting just  now,  as  it  affords  the  best  of  com- 
mentaries on  the  Parnellite  conquest  of  Southern 
Ireland. 

The  source  of  a  great  deal  of  the  wrath  which 
seems  to  have  been  raised  by  my  essay  appears  to  me 
to  lie  in  the  circumstance  that  my  critics  are  too 
angry  to  see  that  the  point  of  difference  between  us 
consists,  not  in  the  appreciation  of  the  merits  of  free- 
dom in  the  three  directions  indicated,  but  in  regard 
to  the  extent  of  those  '  necessary  limitations  '  of  free- 
dom to  which  all  agree.  My  position  is  that  those 
limitations  are  not  determinable  by  a  prioii 
speculation,  but  only  by  the  results  of  experience  ; 
that  they  cannot  be  deduced  from  principles  of 
absolute  ethics,  once  and  for  all,  but  that  they 
vary  with  the  state  of  development  of  the  polity  to 
which  they  are  applied.  And  I  may  be  permitted 
to  observe  that  the  settlement  of  this  question  lies 
neither  with  the  celestial  courts  of  Poesy  nor  with 
the  tribunals  of  speculative  cloudland,  but  with 
men  who  are  accustomed  to  live  and  work  amongst 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  73 

facts,    instead    of   dreaming    amidst   impracticable 
formulas. 

I  am,  sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

T.  H.  Huxley. 

Eastbourne,  January  27. 


To  the  Editor  of  the  'Daily  Telegraph' 

Sir, 

Unwilling  to  occupy  your  space,  or  to  try  the 
patience  of  your  readers  needlessly,  I  abstained,  in 
my  letter  of  the  27  th,  from  dealing  with  a  topic  of 
some  importance  suggested  by  a  sentence  in  Mr. 
Robert  Buchanan's  second  communication.  On 
reflection,  however,  I  am  convinced  that,  in  the 
interest  of  the  public,  the  omission  was  an  error, 
and  I  ask  for  an  opportunity  of  making  reparation. 
This  is  the  sentence  : 

^The  true  political  problem,  placed  before  them 
selves  by  those  jjropagandists  who,  like  Mr. 
Spencer,  are  Socialists  only  in  the  good  and 
philosophical  sense,  and  who  are  not,  like  mere 
Communists,  enemies  of  all  vested  interests  what- 
soever, is  to  regenerate  society  without  destroying 
that  part  of  its  structure  which  experience  proves 
to  be  sound.' 

Mr.  Spencer,  therefore,  is  declared  by  Mr. 
Robert  Buchanan  to  be  a  '  Socialist '  *  in  the  good 
and     philosophical     sense.'      The     other     day    the 


74  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

Newcastle  Socialists  declared  that  their  doctrine 
concerning  land-ownership  was  founded  upon  Mr. 
Spencers  early  teachings,  and  that  these  had  never 
been  really  disowned  by  him.  If  they  are  right  in 
this  contention,  and  if,  in  Mr.  Buchanan's  eyes, 
their  Socialism  is  of  the  *  good  and  philosophical ' 
sort,  then,  of  course,  it  may  be  proper  to  call  Mr. 
Spencer  a  Socialist.  I  offer  no  opinion  on  this 
delicate  subject  ;  but  I  may  be  permitted  to  say 
that,  hitherto,  I  have  laboured  under  the  impres- 
sion that,  whether  he  is  always  consistent  or  not, 
Mr.  Spencer  belongs  to  a  school  of  political 
philosophy  which  is  diametrically  opposed  to  every- 
thing w^hich  has  hitherto  been  known  as  Socialism.^ 
The  variations  of  Socialism  are  as  multitudinous 
as  those  of  Protestantism  ;  but  as  even  a  Bossuet 
must  be  compelled  to  admit  that  the  Protestant 
sects  agree  in  one  thing,  namely,  the  refusal  to 
acknowledge  the  authority  of  the  Pope,  so  I  do 
not  think  it  will  be  denied  that  all  the  Socialist 
sects  agree  in  one  thing,  namely,  the  right  of  the 
State  to  impose  regulations  and  restrictions  upon 
its  members,  over  and  beyond  those  which  may  be 
needful  to  prevent  any  one  man  from  encroaching 
upon  the  equal  rights  of  another.  Every 
Socialistic  theory  I  know  of  demands  from  the 
Government  that  it  shall  do  something  more  than 
attend  to  the  administration  of  justice  between 
man  and  man,  and  to  the  protection  of  the  State 
*  *  For  '  Socialism  '  read  '  Communism,'  and  this  is  true. — E.  B. 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  75 


from  external  enemies.  Contrariwise,  every  form 
of  what  is  called  ^  Individualism '  restricts  the 
functions  of  government,  in  some  or  in  all  direc- 
tions, to  the  discharge  of  internal  and  external 
police  duties,  or,  in  the  case  of  Anarchist  Indi- 
vidualism, still  further.  Scientifically  founded  by 
Locke,  applied  to  economics  by  the  laissez-faire 
philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century,  exhaustively 
stated  by  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  and  developed, 
in  this  country,  with  admirable  consistency  and 
irrefutable  reasoning  (the  premisses  being  granted) 
by  Mr.  Auberon  Herbert,  I  had  always  imagined 
Individualism  to  have  one  of  its  most  passionate 
advocates  in  Mr.  Spencer.  I  had  fondly  supposed, 
until  Mr.  Robert  Buchanan  tauofht  me  better,  that 
if  there  was  any  charge  Mr.  Spencer  would  find 
offensive,  it  would  be  that  of  being  declared  to  be, 
in  any  shape  or  way,  a  Socialist.  Can  it  be 
possible  that  a  little  work  of  Mr.  Spencer  s,  '  The 
Man  versus  the  State,'  published  only  six  years 
ago,  is  not  included  by  Mr.  Buchanan  among  the 
*  more  recent  writings '  of  which  he  speaks,  as, 
perhaps,  too  popular  for  his  notice  ? 

However  this  may  be,  I  desire  to  make  clear  to 
your  readers  what  the  *good  and  philosophical* 
sort  of  ^  Socialism'  which  finds  expression  in  the 
following  passages  is  like  : 

'  There  is  a  notion,  always  more  or  less  pre- 
valent, and  just  now  vociferously  expressed,  that 
all  social  suffering  is  removable,  and  that  it  is  the 


76  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

duty  of  somebody  or  other  to  remove   it.     Both 
these  beliefs  are  false'  (p.  19). 

'  A  creature  not  energetic  enough  to  maintain 
itself  must  die '  is  said  to  be  'a  dictum  on  which 
the  current  creed  and  the  creed  of  Science  are  at 
one'  (p.  19). 

*  Little  as  politicians  recognise  the  fact,  it  is 
nevertheless  demonstrable  that  these  various  public 
appliances  for  working-class  comfort,  which  they 
are  supplying  at  the  cost  of  the  ratepayers,  are 
intrinsically  of  the  same  nature  as  those  which, 
in  past  times,  treated  the  farmer's  man  as  half- 
labourer  and  half-pauper '  (p.  21 ). 

On  p.  22,  legislative  measures  for  the  better 
housing  of  artisans  and  for  the  schooling  of  their 
children;  on  page  24,  for  the  regulation  of  the 
labour  of  women  and  children  ;  on  page  27,  for 
sanitary  purposes — meet  with  the  like  condemna- 
tion. And  the  whole  position  is  neatly  summed 
up  in  the  answer  to  the  question,  *  What  is  essen- 
tial to  the  idea  of  a  slave?'  put  at  page  34.  It  is 
too  long  to  cite  in  its  entirety,  but  here  is  the 
pith  of  it  : 

*  The  essential  question  is.  How  much  is  he 
compelled  to  labour  for  other  benefit  than  his  own, 
and  how  much  can  he  labour  for  his  own  benefit  ? 
The  degree  of  his  slavery  varies  according  to  the 
ratio  between  that  which  he  is  forced  to  yield  up 
and  that  which  he  is  allowed  to  retain  ;  and  it 
matters  not  whether  his  master  is  a  single  person 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  .?  77 

or  a  society.  If,  without  option,  he  has  to  labour 
for  the  society  and  receives  from  the  general  stock 
such  portion  as  the  society  awards  him,  he  hecomes 
a  slave  to  the  society.  Socialistic  arrangements 
necessitate  0,11  enslavement  of  this  kind :  and  to- 
wards such  an  enslavement  many  recent  measures, 
and  still  more  the  measures  advocated,  are  carry- 
ing us '  (p.  35). 

The  words  which  I  have  italicised,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  condemn  Socialism  of  all  kinds  pretty 
forcibly;  and  I  further  suggest  that  they  appear 
to  be  somewhat  inconsistent  with  the  acceptance 
of  even  a  ^  good  and  philosophical '  form  of  that 
creed.  But  Mr.  Robert  Buchanan's  profound 
study  of  Mr.  Spencer  s  works  may  enable  him 
to  produce  contradictory  passages.  I  invite  him 
to  do  so. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

T.   H.   Huxley. 
Eastbourne,  January  29. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  ^ Daily  Telegraph' 

Sir, 

I  have  certainly  expressed  myself  very  ill 
if  I  appeared  to  be  accusing  Professor  Huxley 
of  wholesale  Philistinism,  using  the  word  'Phi- 
listinism '  to  imply  a  class  of  intelligence  outside 
of  all  sympathy  with  advanced  ideals.  No  one 
can  recognise  more  fully  than  myself  the   service 


7^  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

which  Science  has  of  late  years  done  for  Free- 
thought  and  for  Humanity,  and  it  was  precisely 
because  Professor  Huxley  was  classed,  and  classed 
deservedly,  among  the  most  distinguished  of 
those  Scientists  who  have  sacrificed  leisure  and 
comfort  for  the  sake  of  their  fellows,  that  I  was 
aghast  to  find  him  ranging  himself  once,  but  I 
hope  not  for  ever,  with  the  opponents  of  human 
progress. 

On  what  plea,  may  I  ask,  does  Professor 
Huxley,  in  classing  not  only  the  uncrowned  and 
unhonoured  poet,  but  also  the  crowned  and 
honoured  philosopher,  as  equally  impracticable, 
arrogate  to  himself  the  exclusive  mastery  of 
current  and  historical  '  facts  '?  Seemingly  upon 
the  plea  that  both  philosophers  and  poets  dwell 
in  mere  cloudland ;  while  he  alone,  with  mailed 
feet  like  those  of  Perseus,  walks,  dragon-slaying, 
on  the  common  ground.  It  is  idle  to  defend  the 
Philosophers,  but  I  think  even  the  Poets  have 
shown  their  capacity  to  realize  practical  problems. 
One  of  them,  whom  all  the  world  honours, 
sounded  the  trumpet-note  of  human  freedom  when 
he  wrote  the  '  Areopagitica.'  Another  of  them, 
less  appreciated  and  far  less  noble,  struck  off  the 
bonds  of  Galas  and  touched  the  quick  of  human 
doubt  when  he  sang  of  the  Earthquake  at  Lisbon. 
Both  these  men  were  particularly  distinguished 
— the  second  no  doubt  a  little  barbarously — by 
their  consummate  mastery  of  '  facts.'     As  to  Mr. 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  79 

Spencer,  a  philosopher  'pur  et  simple ,  he  hasi 
marshalled  in  his  ^  Principles  of  Sociology  '  and  in 
the  compilations  published  as  practical  addenda  to 
that  work,  an  array  of  social  and  historical  evidence 
unequalled  certainly  in  this  generation.  Professor 
Huxley,  on  the  other  hand,  burrows  so  deep  among 
what  he  considers  '  facts  '  that  he  becomes  a  sort  of 
moral  troglodyte,  and  loses  knowledge  of  the  upper 
sunshine  and  fresh  air. 

'  An  tenebras  Orci  visat  vastasque  lacunas.' 
And  when  he  emerges  into  common  daylight  what 
has  he  to  tell  us  ?  Not  the  grand  truths  which  he 
and  others  have  won  honour  by  advocating,  but 
trivial  ipse  dixit  statements,  not  to  be  verified  in 
any  daylight  whatever.  His  one  ruling  idea  con- 
cerning men  is  that  they  must  be  'governed' — 
washed,  cleaned,  assorted,  parcelled  out  and  labelled, 
educated  up  to  the  theory  that  there  is  a  political 

*  statute  of  limitations,'  and  that  the  force  of  a 
special  governmental  Providence  is  a  thing  not 
to  be  resisted. 

Just  look  a  little  closer  at  his  statements,  that 

*  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  opinion  that 
force  effectually  and  thoroughly  used,  so  as  to 
render  further  opposition  hopeless,  establishes  an 
ownership  that  should  be  recognised  as  soon  as 
possible,'  and  that  '  for  the  welfare  of  society, 
as  well  as  for  that  of  individual  men,  there  should 
be  a  statute  of  limitations  in  respect  of  the  con- 
sequences of  wrong-doing.'     Let  us  ask  ourselves, 


8o  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  1 


in  the  first  place,  by  what  means  men  are  to 
determine  the  hopelessness  of  opposition  ?  The 
history  of  the  Christian  origins,  of  Society  before 
the  English  or  the  French  Revolutions  —  nay, 
above  all,  the  story  of  Science  itself,  of  its  martyrs 
and  its  conquerors — is  the  record  of  struggles 
which,  from  the  point  of  view  of  contemporary 
experience,  were  altogether  '  hopeless.'  Even  the 
last  French  Empire,  with  its  triumph  over  a 
generation,  with  its  glorification  of  the  gospel 
according  to  Belial  and  Baron  Hausmann,  threat- 
ened France  with  utter  despair,  crammed  and  fed 
France  with  all  the  physical  comforts  of  sensualism 
and  what  Carlyle  called  *  Devil's  dung.'  Then 
look  at  results  ;  look  at  the  conscience  of 
Humanity  hoping  against  hope,  rejecting  all  the 
Devil's  moral  prescriptions  '  to  be  quiet  and  yield 
to  the  powers  which  be  and  must  be,'  but  dis- 
integrating the  evil  of  political  institutions  by  sheer 
persistency  of  opposition.  Whenever  Professor 
Huxley  can  show  that  there  is  no  hope  on  the 
earth  or  above  it,  then  assuredly,  and  not  till 
then,  we  will  sit  down  with  him  and  *  grovel 
among  facts.'  Meanwhile,  we  can  only  grieve 
that  the  religion  of  Science,  hailed  by  all  of  us  as 
the  birth  of  a  new  day,  is  fossilizing  already  into 
a  religion  of  despair  ;  that  the  New  Politics  of 
the  Expert  is  a  chaos,  not  a  cosmos,  has  not  even 
the  glimmering  of  a  cosmos.  And  the  ^  statute 
of  limitations'?      Reduce  it  to  common- sense,  and 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  8t 

what  does  it  mean  ?  It  admits  that  modern 
Society  is  founded  on  ancient  wrong-doing,  that 
Jacob  robbed  Esau  long  ago  ;  but  it  asserts  that 
— on  the  corollary,  of  course,  that  ^  opposition  is 
hopeless ' — Esau,  having  discovered  the  theft,  and 
returned  to  claim  his  birthright,  is  to  go  back  to 
the  desert.  Biblical  History,  being  much  shrewder 
than  modern  Science,  tells  us  that  he  did  nothing  of 
the  kind.  The  life  corporate  of  Society,  as  Science 
and  Philosophy  alike  agree,  is  practically  an 
enlarged  version  of  the  life  of  the  Individual. 
Thus,  then — to  make  an  illustration — I  was 
knocked  down  and  robbed  of  all  I  possessed, 
twenty,  thirty  years  ago,  by  a  person  stronger 
than  myself  For  all  these  years  I  have  been 
a  pauper  and  an  outcast  through  my  enemy's 
wrong-doing.  To-day,  after  endless  suffering,  I 
discover  my  enemy,  a  rich  and  prosperous  man, 
a  member  (say)  of  the  City  Council  and  the  Vigi- 
lance Committee,  enjoying  the  unearned  increment 
as  well  as  the  original  capital  he  stole.  I  go  to 
him  quietly  and  say,  '  You  robbed  me  years 
ago ;  I  am  not  malicious,  and  you  may  keep 
what  has  accrued,  but  I  want  you,  my  dear  sir, 
to  restore  me  my  original  capital.'  Am  I  to  be 
answered,  to  be  silenced,  by  the  statement  that 
the  robbery  took  place  such  a  very  long  time 
ago  ;  and  that,  my  case  being  hopeless,  ownership 
established  had  *  better  be  recognised  as  soon  as 
possible  '? 

6 


82  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL? 

'  As  to  freedom  to  share  the  necessaries  of  Hfe/ 
says  our  new  Daniel  come  to  Judgment,  ^  I  really 
was  not  aware  that  anybody  is,  or  can  be,  refused 
that  freedom,'  and  he  illustrates  his  contention  by 
saying  that  *  if  a  man  has  anything  to  offer  which 
the  baker  thinks  worth  a  loaf,  that  loaf  will  cer- 
tainly be  given  to  him.'  What  a  mockery  of, 
not  to  say  *  grovelling  in,'  facts,  have  we  here  ! 
What  a  putting  of  the  cart  before  the  horse  ! 
Society  begins  by  paralyzing  a  man,  b}^  denying 
to  him  ordinary  light,  leisure,  instruction,  the 
power  of  *  having  anything  to  offer ';  it  converts 
him  into  a  mere  pauper  by  refusing  him  the 
common  vocabulary  of  civilization,  and  then,  when 
he  asks  for  bread,  Society  replies,  ^  Certainly ; 
what  have  you  to  give  me  in  exchange  V  What 
Freedom  and  Equality  mean  is  that  every  man 
should  be  invested  with  the  power  enabling  him, 
by  fair  labour,  to  produce  something  which  is 
a  loaf's  value.  Is  this  the  case  ?  If  it  is  so, 
then  I  am  stultified,  and  the  Professor's  *  facts ' 
are  victorious. 

So  much  for  the  Professor's  general  statements. 
In  the  postscriptal  letter  published  this  morning 
in  your  columns,  Professor  Huxley  suggests  that 
I  am  possibly  much  mistaken  in  calling  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  a  *  Socialist,'  and  after  quoting 
certain  passages  from  the  philosopher's  writings, 
invites  me  to  quote  from  the  same  writings 
passages  which  are  contradictory.      So  far  as  the 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL?  83 

Land  Question  itself  is  concerned,  and  the  attitude 
of  the  Newcastle  reformers  thereupon,  I  presume 
I  need  not  go  further  than  cite  the  following- 
passage  from  ^  Social  Statics ':  ^  Equity  does  not 
permit  property  in  land.  For,  if  one  portion  of 
the  earth's  surface  may  justly  become  the  property 
of  an  individual,  held  for  his  sole  use  and  benefit, 
as  a  thing  to  which  he  has  an  exclusive  right, 
then  other  portions  of  the  earth's  surface  may 
be  so  held,  and  our  planet  may  thus  lapse  into 
private  hands.  It  follows  that  if  the  landowners 
have  a  valid  right  to  its  surface,  all  those  who  are 
not  landowners  have  no  right  at  all  to  its  surface.' 
Mr.  Spencer  has  not  been  in  the  habit  of  dis- 
claiming his  own  dicta,  and  the  Socialists  of  New- 
castle need  have  no  fear,  I  fancy,  that  he  will 
disclaim  this  one.  But,  Professor  Huxley  insists, 
Mr.  Spencer's  later  utterances  are  those,  not  of 
Socialism,  but  of  Individualism,  entirely  overlooking 
(/  the  fact  that  the  terms  Socialism  and  Individualism 
are  not  contrary  terms,  hut  tivo  facets  of  the  same 
proposition.  ^ 

So  far  as  Socialism  in  our  own  country  is  con- 
cerned, I  ought  to  know  something  of  its  inner 
nature,  for  I  was  born  in  its  odour  of  popular 
unsanctity.  My  father  was  one  of  Robert  Owen's 
missionaries,  and  the  personal  influence  of  Owen 
— one  of  the  greatest  and  best  of  doctrinaires — 
influenced  all  my  early  life.  Now,  Owen's  first 
and  cardinal  dictum,  the  one  on  which  he  insisted 

6—2 


84  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

with  almost  wearisome  iteration,  was  that  Man, 
though  born  free  and  equal  in  the  sphere  of  moral 
rights,  '  was  entirely  the  creature  of  circumstances,' 
and  the  main  mission  of  his  life  was  the  mission 
of  Socialism  generally — to  modify  those  circum- 
stances so  as  to  produce,  practically,  a  new  Moral 
World.  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  such  Socialism 
conflicts  to  any  unnecessary  extent  with  Indi- 
vidualism ;  indeed,  the  history  of  the  movement 
is  full  of  amusing  episodes  illustrating  the  entire 
freedom  of  its  believers  in  such  matters  of 
personal  conduct,  and  even  of  opinion,  as  did  not 
imperil  the  machinery  of  the  social  organism.  The 
ivell-known  and  well-meaning  Mr.  Galpin  went 
about  clothed  in  a  simple  sack,  and  the  divergences 
of  individual  opinion  on  moral  questions  led  to 
strange  manifestations  at  New  Harmony.  Across 
the  Channel,  and  in  France  particularly,  the  story 
of  Socialism  is  the  story  of  infinite  eccentricities. 
From  the  personal  absurdities  of  St.  Simoh  down 
to  those  of  Auguste  Comte,  from  the  amazing 
performances  of  the  speculative  Enfantin  to  those 
of  his  pupil  and  practician  Bazard,  it  is  easy  to 
perceive  that  Socialism  postulates  the  right  of  a 
man  to  do  what  he  pleases  so  long  as  he  takes  his 
turn  at  the  task-wheel,  and  does  not  interfere  with 
ihe  privileges  of  his  fellow-believers. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  explain  Mr.  Spencer,  who 
can  so  admirably  explain  himself  It  is  quite 
possible    that    he    may    disclaim    being    called    *  a 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  85 


Socialist,'  since  the  word  (as  Professor  Huxley 
well  knows)  is  so  connected  in  the  public  mind 
with  an  idea  of  state  tyranny ;  but  I  wrote 
advisedly  of  ^  the  higher  Socialism,'  not  of  the 
lower,  just  as  I  might  write  of  the  higher 
Christianity,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  lower,  the 
historical,  and  the  dogmatic  forms  of  that  creed. 
Professor  Huxley's  particular  instances,  in  which 
he  finds  either  an  anarchic  Individualism  or  an 
absurd  contradiction,  may  be  very  summarily  dealt 
with. 

Mr.  Spencer  has  stated,  in  the  first  place,  that 
it  is  quite  impossible  to  remove  ^  social  suffering  '' 
altogether,  a  statement  grounded  on  his  experience 
that,  so  long  as  men  are  men,  there  will  be 
individual  victory  and  failure.  I  fail  to  see  how 
that  conflicts  with  the  opinion  that  the  chances 
in  the  competition  should  be  equalized  as  far  as 
possible — in  one  way,  as  we  have  seen,  by  pre- 
venting individuals  from  monopolizing  the  land. 
Strangely  enough.  Professor  Huxley  stigmatizes 
with  the  charge  of  dangerous  Individualism  the 
very  man  who  says  that  Society  should  protect 
itself  at  all  points  from  the  encroachment  of 
individuals !  '  A  creature  not  energetic  enough 
to  sustain  itself  must  die,'  says  Mr.  Spencer  again, 
which  is  surely  true,  and  in  no  way  at  variance 
with  the  theory  that  the  social  organism  must 
be  restrained  from  cruelly  crushing  any  creature 
out    of  life.  .  Socialism   contends    that    it    is    not 


86  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  1 

want  of  energy,   but    want   of   opportunity,    that 
pauperises  men  and  destroys  individual  vitality. 

Professor  Huxley's  next  citation  from  Mr. 
Spencer — that  '  it  is  demonstrable  that  various 
appliances  for  working-class  comfort,  supplied  at  the 
cost  of  the  ratepayei's,  are  intrinsically  of  the  same 
nature  as  those  which  in  past  times  treated  the 
farmer's  man  as  half-labourer  and  half-pauper  ' — and 
that  in  proportion  to  a  man's  helplessness  without 
social  aid  and  superintendence  is  the  degree  of  his 
^  slavery  ' — would,  I  conceive,  be  subscribed  to  by 
most  Socialists.  For  what  men  want  is  to  start  the 
social  reformation  at  the  beginning  and  forwards, 
not  at  the  end  and  backwards.  What  the  'good 
and  philosophical '  Socialist  says  is  clear  enough  :  '  I 
do  not  particularly  care  for  Governmental  inter- 
ference with  my  private  life  and  comfort,  though  I 
recognise  the  necessity  of  political  and  civic  govern- 
ment, down  to  such  general  details  as  draining  and 
lighting.  What  I  do  want  is  to  have  the  weeds 
cleared  away  which  prevent  my  progress  as  an 
individual  member  of  society.  You  cannot  help 
me  much  by  compelling  me  to  labour,  without 
option,  for  the  common  benefit,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  you  confirm  the  institutions  which  allow 
large  classes  of  men  not  to  labour  at  all.  I  will 
not  become  a  "  slave  to  your  society,"  because  I  do 
not  recognise  that  society  as  founded  on  absolute 
political  ethics.  I  was  born  a  free  man,  not  a 
slave.'     I  do  not  fancy  that  Mr.  Spencer  disagrees 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL?  87 

on  any  essential  point  with  the  '  good  and  philo- 
sophical '  Socialist. 

Let  me  put  the  matter  plainly.  Professor 
Huxley  misunderstands  the  higher  Socialism  as 
thoroughly  as  he  misunderstands  Mr.  Spencer. 
He  is  'trimming/  while  Mr.  Spencer  is  recon- 
structing. The  triumph  of  Socialism,  historically 
and  morally,  is  the  triumph  of  Individualism. 
Ecclesiasticism,  for  example,  has  gone  down  like  a 
house  of  cards,  because  the  free  thought  of 
Individualism — id  est.  Socialism — said,  in  face  of 
huge  majorities,  that  Ecclesiasticism  was  an  in- 
terference with  the  right  of  private  judgment  in 
matters  personal  and  spiritual.  Protestantism 
decayed,  from  the  moment  it  became,  instead  of 
the  protest  of  a  minority,  the  tyranny  of  a 
majority.  Socialism  itself,  the  lower  Socialism, 
has  collapsed  in  many  of  its  organizations,  because 
it  forgot  its  first  principles  of  freedom  and  equality  ; 
because  (to  take  Professor  Huxley's  illustration)  it 
suggested  to  the  Revolutionists  the  idea  of  sustain- 
ing common  freedom  and  equality  by  guillotining 
each  other,  and  because,  as  in  the  case  of  Enfantin 
and  his  group,  by  upholding  a  scientific  and  sen- 
suous priesthood  as  *  the  Living  Law  of  God/ 
it  adopted  the  insane  vocabulary  of  superstition. 
'  Father,'  said  Bonheur  to  Enfantin,  '  I  believe 
in  you,  as  I  believe  in  the  sun.  You  are  to 
my  eyes  the  Sun  of  Humanity.'  Well  might 
Lafitte   exclaim    to   such   enthusiasts,    '  You    post 


88  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL? 

your   advertisements  too  high — one  cannot    read 
them.' 

Unhappily  the  leaning  of  most  new  creeds,  as 
of  all  the  old,  is  in  the  direction  of  social  tyranny. 
And  why  ?  Simply  because  poor  human  nature 
finds  it  hard  to  understand,  and  far  harder  to  carry 
out,  absolute  ethical  principles.  Socialism,  like  all 
other  human  efforts  to  secure  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number — like  Christianity,  like  the 
Religion  of  Humanity — has  failed  again  and  again. 
But  if  Professor  Huxley's  dicta  of  quasi-pro- 
vidential or  Governmental  interference  with  the 
conduct  of  life  were  to  be  universally  accepted. 
Humanity  might  well  despair  for  ever  ;  for  with 
the  destruction  of  Individualism  would  end  the 
last  hope  of  the  higher  Socialism.  Over-legislation 
would  restore  slavery  to  mankind,  and  preserve  the 
semi-disintegrated  feudality  which  is  still  so  large  a 
portion  of  our  political  sj^-stem.  The  philosopher, 
not  the  quidnunc,  holds  the  secret  of  wise  legisla- 
tion. The  creed  of  the  higher  Socialism,  not  the 
creed  of  those  who  believe  that  Socialism  conflicts 
with  Individualism,  is  that  which  follows  the  Law 
of  Nature,  by  basing  individual  chances  on  the 
natural  freedom  and  equality  of  men. 

To  find  Professor  Huxley  fighting  for  the  status 
quo  in  Politics  is  to  me  a  far  sadder  sight  than  to 
find  him  (for  such  a  miracle  may  some  day  happen) 
fighting  for  the  status  quo  in  Religion.  Religion, 
after  all,  can    take  care  of  itself     But   the  man 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL?  89 

who  argues  in  favour  of  Force  as  a  proof  of  owne  r- 

ship,  and  of  a   Statute  of  Limitations  in  matters 

of  secular  wrong-doing,  will  one  day  have  to  cast 

in  his   lot  with  Ecclesiasticism   and  the   Bishops. 

There  is  no  way  out  of  the  dilemma,  for  Church 

and  State  stand   or  fall  together.      I  shall   watch 

with  curiosity  the  process  which  may  lead  to  the 

conversion  of  another  Saul. 

I  am,  etc., 

Robert  Buchanan. 
January  31. 


To  the  Editor  of  the  '  Daily  Telegraph.' 

Sir, 

Your  readers  must  take  Mr.  Robert 
Buchanan's  censures  of  me  and  my  opinions  for 
what  they  are  worth ;  I  am  not  concerned  to 
defend  myself  against  them.  Mr.  Buchanan 
thinks  that  '  Socialism  and  individualism  are  not 
contrary  terms,  but  two  facts  (?  faces)"^  of  the  same 
proposition.' 

Hence,  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  when  Mr. 
Spencer  declares  that  ^  Socialistic  arrangements 
necessitate  enslavement,'  he  also  means  that 
*  individualistic  arrangements  necessitate  enslave- 
ment.' 

And  I  must  leave  that  instructive  development 

*  *  Facts '  in  my  letter  was  a  misprint  for  'facets.' 


90  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  7 

of  absolute  political  ethics — together  with  the 
question  whether  Mr.  Buchanan  is  entitled  to  cite 
a  work  which  Mr.  Spencer  has  repudiated — to  be 
further  discussed  by  those  who  may  be  interested 
in  such  topics,  of  whom  I  am  not  one  (!). 
I  am,  your  obedient  servant, 

T.   H.   Huxley. 
Eastbourne,  February  3. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  'Daily  Telegraph' 

Sir, 

Suffer  me,  like  Professor  Huxley,  to  say  one 
last  word,  and  that  word  shall  be  one  of  cordial 
acquiescence  in  the  suggestion  that  the  enslave- 
ment of  Society  is  also  the  enslavement  of  the 
Individual.  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  an  individual, 
save  in  the  sphere  of  absolute  thought  and  ethics, 
is  not  in  a  certain  sense  the  ^  slave  '  of  his  own 
organism.  Just  as  a  society  is  held  together  by 
its  laws  of  life,  so  is  a  man  held  together  by 
identical  laws.  He  cannot  escape  from  the  general 
discharge  of  functions  and  interchange  of  currents 
which  condition  his  vitality.  The  microcosm  is  a 
society  just  as  much  as  the  macrocosm.  So  far 
the  Scientist  and  I  are  agreed.  We  only  part 
company  at  the  point  where  the  scientist  treats 
both  Society  and  the  Individual  as  mechanical  only, 
independent  altogether  of  those  absolute  principles 
which,    while    they    fail    to    *  interest '    Professor 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  1  91 

Huxley,  are  attacked  so  vehemently  in  his  system 
of  ^  Providence  Made  Easy.' 

I  am,  etc., 

Robert  Buchanan. 

[This     discussion     ended     with     the     following 
energetic  letter  from  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  :] 

To  the  Editor  of  the  ^  Daily  Telegraph.^ 

Sir, 

Though  the  recent  controversy  carried  on  in 
your  columns  under  the  title  '  Are  Men  Born  Free 
and  Equal  V  has  chiefly  concerned  certain  political 
views  of  mine,  I  have  thus  far  remained  passive, 
and  even  now  do  not  propose  to  say  anything 
about  the  main  issues.  To  Mr.  Buchanan  I  owe 
thanks  for  the  chivalrous  feeling  which  prompted 
his  defence.  Professor  Huxley,  by  quoting  pas- 
sages showing  my  dissent  from  what  is  currently 
understood  as  Socialism,  has  rendered  me  a  service. 
I  might  fitly  let  the  matter  pass  without  remark, 
were  it  not  needful  to  rectify  a  grave  misrepre- 
sentation. 

Describing  the  position  of  the  penniless  man, 
Professor  Huxley  says :  '  It  is  not  I,  but  the 
extreme  Individualists,  who  will  say  that  he  may 
starve.  If  the  State  relieves  his  necessities,  it  is 
not  I,  but  they,  who  say  it  is  exceeding  its 
powers  ;  if  private  charity  succours  the  poor 
fellow,  it  is  not  I,  but  they,  who  reprove  the  giver 


92  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

for  interfering  with  the  survival  of  the  fittest.' 
And  the  view  thus  condemned  by  impHcation  he 
has  previously  characterized  as  '  the  political 
philosophy  which  Mr.  Buchanan  idolizes,  the 
consistent  application  of  which  reasoned  savagery 
to  practice  would  have  left  the  working  classes 
to  fight  out  the  struggle  for  existence  among 
themselves.' 

Professor  Huxley  is  fertile  in  strong  expressions, 
and  ^  reasoned  savagery  '  is  one  of  them  ;  but  in 
proportion  as  the  expressions  used  are  strong, 
should  be  the  care  taken  in  applying  them,  lest 
Undeserved  stigmas  may  result.  Unfortunately, 
in  this  case  he  appears  to  have  been  misled  by  that 
deductive  method  which  he  reprobates,  and  has 
not  followed  that  inductive  method  which  he 
applauds.  Had  he  looked  for  facts  instead  of 
drawing  inferences,  he  would  have  found  that  I 
have  nowhere  expressed  or  implied  any  such 
'  reasoned  savagery  '  as  he  describes.  For  nearly 
fifty  years  I  have  contended  that  the  pains 
attendant  on  the  struggle  for  existence  may  fitly 
be  qualified  by  the  aid  which  private  sympathy 
prompts.  In  a  pamphlet  on  ^  The  Proper  Sphere 
of  Government,'  written  at  the  age  of  twenty-two, 
it  is  argued  that  in  the  absence  of  a  poor  law  '  the 
blessings  of  charity  would  be  secured  unaccom- 
panied by  the  evils  of  pauperism.'  In  '  Social 
Statics'  this  view  is  fully  set  forth.  While  the 
discipline   of  the  battle  of  life   is  recognised  and 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  93 

insisted  upon  as  *  that  same  beneficent  though 
severe  discipline,  to  which  the  animate  creation 
at  large  is  subject/  there  is  also  recognised  and 
insisted  upon  the  desirableness  of  such  mitiga- 
tions as  spontaneously  result  from  individual  fellow- 
feeling.  It  is  argued  that  privately  *  helping  men 
to  help  themselves  '  leaves  a  balance  of  benefit,  and 
that,  ^  although  by  these  ameliorations  the  process 
of  adaptation  must  be  remotely  interfered  with, 
yet,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  it  will  not  be  so  much 
retarded  in  one  direction  as  it  will  be  advanced  in 
another.' 

'  As  no  cruel  thing  can  be  done  without  character 
being  thrust  a  degree  back  towards  barbarism, 
so  no  kind  thing  can  be  done  without  character 
being  moved  a  degree  forward  towards  perfection. 
Doubly  efficacious,  therefore,  are  all  assuagings  of 
distress,  instigated  by  sympathy  ;  for  not  only  do 
they  remedy  the  particular  evils  to  be  met,  but 
they  help  to  mould  humanity  into  a  form  by  which 
such  evils  will  one  day  be  precluded'  (pp.  318, 
319,  1st  edit.). 

Professor  Huxley's  ingenuity  as  a  controver- 
sialist, great  though  it  is,  will,  I  fancy,  fail  to 
disclose  the  ^  reasoned  savagery '  contained  in  these 
sentences.  Should  he  say  that,  during  the  forty 
years  which  have  elapsed  since  they  were  written, 
my  views  have  changed  from  a  more  humane  to  a 
less  humane  form,  and  that  I  would  now  see  the 
struggle  for   existence,  with   resulting   survival   of 


94  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

the  fittest,  carried  on  without  check,  then  I  meet 
the  allegation  by  another  extract.  In  the  ^  Prin- 
ciples of  Sociology/  sec.  322,  I  have  explained  at 
some  length  that  every  species  of  creature  can 
continue  to  exist  only  by  conforming  to  two 
opposed  principles — one  for  the  life  of  the  im- 
mature, and  the  other  for  the  life  of  the  mature. 
The  law  for  the  immature  is,  that  benefits  received 
shall  be  great  in  proportion  as  worth  is  small  ; 
while  for  the  mature  the  law  is,  that  benefits 
received  shall  be  great  in  proportion  as  worth  is 
great — worth  being  measured  by  efficiency  for  the 
purposes  of  life.  The  corollary,  as  applied  to 
social  affairs,  runs  as  follows: 

'  Hence  the  necessity  of  maintaining  this  cardinal 
distinction  between  the  ethics  of  the  family  and 
the  ethics  of  the  State.  Hence  the  fatal  result  if 
family  disintegration  [referring  to  a  view  of  Sir 
Henry  Maine]  goes  so  far  that  family  policy  and 
State  policy  become  confused.  Unqualified  gene- 
rosity must  remain  the  principle  of  the  family 
while  offspring  are  passing  through  their  early 
stages  ;  and  generosity  increasingly  qualified  by 
justice  must  remain  its  principle  as  offspring  are 
approaching  maturity.  Conversely,  the  principle 
of  the  society  guiding  the  acts  of  citizens  to  one 
another  must  ever  be  justice,  qualified  by  such 
generosity  as  their  several  natures  prompt ;  joined 
with  unqualified  justice  in  the  corporative  acts  of 
the  society  to  its  members.  However  fitly  in  the 
battle  of  life   among   adults   the   proportioning  of 


ARE  MEN  BORN  EREE  AND  EQUAL  ?  95 

rewards  to  merits  may  be  tempered  by  private 
sympathy  in  favour  of  the  inferior,  nothing  but  evil 
can  result  if  this  proportioning  is  so  interfered  with 
by  public  arrangements  that  demerit  profits  at  the 
expense  of  merit.' 

Still  more  recently  has  there  been  again  set 
forth  this  general  view.  In  '  The  Man  versus  the 
State,'  pp.  64-67,  along  with  the  assertion  that 
^  society  in  its  corporate  capacity  cannot,  without 
immediate  or  remoter  disaster,  interfere  with  the 
play  of  these  opposed  principles,  under  which 
every  species  has  reached  such  fitness  for  its  mode 
of  life  as  it  possesses,'  there  goes  a  qualification 
like  that  above  added. 

*I  say  advisedly — society  in  its  corporate  capacity, 
not  intending  to  exclude  or  condemn  aid  given  to 
the  inferior  by  the  superior  in  their  individual 
capacities.  Though,  when  given  so  indiscriminately 
as  to  enable  the  inferior  to  multiply,  such  aid 
entails  mischief;  yet  in  the  absence  of  aid  given 
by  society,  individual  aid,  more  generally  de- 
manded than  now,  and  associated  with  a  greater 
sense  of  responsibility,  would,  on  the  average,  be 
given  with  the  effect  of  fostering  the  unfortunate 
worthy  rather  than  the  innately  unworthy  ;  there 
being  always,  too,  the  concomitant  social  benefit 
arising  from  cultufe  of  the  sympathies.' 

In  other  places  the  like  is  expressed  or  implied, 
but  it  is   needless  to  cite  further  evidence.     The 


96  ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUAL  ? 

passages  I  have  quoted  will  make  sufficiently  clear 
the  opinion  I  have  all  along  held,  and  still  hold  ; 
and  everyone  will  be  able  to  judge  whether  this 
opinion  is  rightly  characterized  by  the  phrase 
^  reasoned  savagery.' 

Herbert  Spencer. 
London,  February  7. 

Final  Note  on  the  Discussion. 

It  will  be  seen  that  much  of  the  question,  ^  Are 
men  born  free  and  equal  V  became  merged  in  the 
other  question,  '  What  is  Socialism  V  My  answer 
to  that  question — Le,.,  that  true  Socialism  was  a 
combination  to  protect  the  rights  of  individuals — 
was  paradoxical  enough  to  puzzle  my  friend  Mr. 
Spencer,  and  I  had  neither  the  time  nor  the 
opportunity  to  explain  my  meaning  fully.  I  have 
no  more  sympathy  than  Mr.  Spencer  himself  (as  I 
have  shown  elsewhere)  with  any  kind  of  tyrannous 
organization,  whether  framed  in  the  name  of 
vested  interests  or  in  the  name  of  the  people. 
True  Socialism — the  Science  of  Sentiment — to 
which  I  adhere,  fetters  no  man's  moral  activity, 
limits    no    man's    character,    restricts    no    man's 

evolution  : 

*  No  man  can  save  another's  Soul, 
Or  pay  another's  Debt.' 

And  what  the  individual  man  cannot  do,  cannot  be 
done  by  any  organization  of  men.  Thus  I  stand, 
with  Mr.  Spencer,  for  the  spread  of  the  sense  of 


ARE  MEN  BORN  FREE  AND  EQUALS  97 

moral  responsibility,  for  individual  effort  and 
energization  ;  while  Professor  Huxley  stands  for 
the  status  quo,  for  Beneficent  Legislation,  for  Pro- 
vidence made  Easy.  As  little  as  either  of  these 
teachers  do  I  see  hope  or  find  comfort  in  the 
savagery  of  false  Socialism,  in  the  Anarchy  of 
Ignorance,  in  the  terrorism  of  the  emerging  Demo- 
gorgon.  Far  as  I  follow  Mr.  Spencer,  however, 
in  his  masterly  abstract  statements,  there  is  a 
point  where  even  a  disciple  and  a  friend  may  hesi- 
tate. I  cannot  calmly  leave  the  regeneration  of 
things  evil  to  the  slow  and  certain  evolution  of  the 
corporate  conscience ;  I  feel  that  there  is  much 
to  be  said  for  the  advocates  of  a  more  active 
social  reorganization,  and  I  am  not  so  convinced 
as  Mr.  Spencer  of  the  necessary  sacredness  of 
contracts,  or  of  the  wisdom  of  holding  them 
inviolable.  It  would  not  be  difficult,  I  think,  to 
define  the  limits  within  which  even  State  Socialism 
is  expedient  and  beneficial.  Xothing  certainly  can 
be  more  terrible  than  the  existinof  condition  of 
things,  both  social  and  political,  and  all  efforts  to 
mend  that  condition,  be  they  ever  so  revolutionary, 
have  my  sympathy.  It  is  quite  clear,  therefore, 
that  I  do  not  follow  the  Prophet  with  my  eyes 
shut,  and  I  can  quite  understand  that  Mr.  Spencer 
must  have  considered  me,  in  more  than  one  ex- 
pression of  opinion,  a  Devil's  Advocate. 

E.  B. 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL  : 

A   Protest  against  Over-legislation   in   Matters 

Literary. 


*  Tell  me,  where  is  the  place  that  men  call  Hell  1 

Meph. — Under  the  heavens. 

Faust. — Ay,  so  are  all  things  else  ;  but  whereabouts  1 

Meph. — Within  the  bowels  of  these  Elements 

Where  we  are  tortured  and  remain  for  ever. 

Hell  has  no  limits,  nor  is  circumscribed 

In  one  self  place  :  but  where  we  are  is  Hell ; 

And  where  Hell  is,  there  must  we  ever  be 

And,  to  be  short,  when  all  the  world  dissolves, 

And  every  creature  shall  be  purified. 

All  places  shall  be  Hell  that  are  not  Heaven. 

Faust — I  think  Hell  is  a  fable. 

Meph. — Ah  !  think  so  still,  till  experience  change  thy  mind.' 

Marlowe's  Faustus. 


7—2 


ON  DESCENDING   INTO   HELL. 

To    the    Right    Hon.     Henry    Matthews, 

Home   Secretary, 

Right  Hon.  Sir, 

You  are,  I  understand,  a  Roman  Catholic; 
I  am  a  Catholic  plus  an  eclectic.  I  have  the 
highest  respect  for  the  creed  in  which  you  believe, 
since  it  is  perhaps  the  most  logically  constructed 
of  all  human  creeds  ;  but  while  I  admire  the  logic 
I  do  not  admit  all  the  premises,  and  cannot  con- 
sequently follow  you  to  all  its  conclusions.  Is  it 
t3o  much  to  hope,  however,  that  even  Roman 
Catholicism  has  shared  the  fate  of  other  beliefs, 
and  been  shorn  of  many  of  its  imperfections  ?  Its 
history  represents  it  as  at  once  the  friend  of 
literature,  and  literature's  mortal  enemy  ;  it  has 
preserved  for  us  much  that  is  precious,  together 
with  many  husks  of  uncleanliness  which  might 
have  been  more  wisely  destroyed,  and  it  has 
formulated  the  Index,  before  which,  from  gene- 
ration to  generation.  Free  Thought  has  trem- 
bled. It  washed  the  sin-stained  robes  of  St. 
A.ugustine  with  one  hand,  and  it  burned  Giordano 
Bruno  with  the  other.      All  that  is  over,  and  just 


I02  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL, 


now,  in  the  eighty-ninth  year  of  this  century, 
Roman  CathoHcism  stands  face  to  face  with  its 
old  enemies,  Free  Thought  and  Science,  with  whom 
less  than  a  miracle  might  even  yet  effect  a  recon- 
ciliation. For  the  creed  of  Persecution  is  also 
the  creed  of  spiritual  Insight  :  the  carnal  wolfs 
clothing,  perhaps,  still  hides  the  Lamb  of  God. 
If  in  its  supreme  moment  of  eclipse  the  suffering 
Church  were  to  admit  its  sins  and  reform  its 
terminology,  Humanity  might  almost  accept  its 
blessing  —  forget  Torquemada,  and  remember 
Bishop  Myriel. 

An  opportunity  occurs  now  in  England.  A 
new  Inquisition,  with  which  the  Roman  Church 
has  fortunately  nothing  to  do,  proposes  to  shut 
all  carnal  books,  and  to  punish  all  men  who  write, 
read,  and  sell  them.  For  issuing  to  the  public  the 
writings  of  an  able  Advocate  on  the  Devil's  side, 
an  unfortunate  Publisher  of  Books  lies  now  in 
prison."^  The  flourishing  Puritan,  apt  pupil  of 
old  Kome  in  persecution,  has  decided  that  Free 
Thought  is  to  be  silenced,  and  the  Arbor  Scientise 
cut  down  and  burned.  It  is  the  story  of  Castilio 
over  again,  and  John  Calvin  survives  in  the  spirit, 
to  make  a  martyr  s  bonfire.  Now,  then,  I  believe, 
is  the  time  for  the  Church  Catholic,  the  Church 
persecuted  and  purified,  to  confess  her  sin,  and  cast 
in  her  lot  with  the  Humanity  she  once  hated, 
saying,  ^  Even  as  my  Saints  and  Monks  preserved 
*  Written  in  1889. 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  103 

for  men  the  banal  humanities  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
even  as  (while  stifling  the  literature  of  speculation) 
they  saved  for  the  world  the  literature  of  the  flesh, 
letting  my  children  nourish  themselves  on  the  bread 
thereof  and  cast  the  leaven  away,  so  will  I  now 
proclaim  that  even  the  Literature  of  Hell  shall  not 
be  hidden  quite  below  the  depths  of  argument.'  If 
the  Church  escapes  this  opportunity,  it  will  be  her 
own  misfortune  ;  if  she  takes  it  boldly,  she  will 
gain  at  least  one  day's  triumph.  More  than  any 
Church  still  surviving,  she  believes  that  her  argu- 
ments are  overpowering.  Since  she  has  found  it 
quite  useless  to  suppress  her  enemies  by  force,  why 
not  sufi^er  them  to  have  their  say  in  open  daylight, 
before  the  world  ?  By  her  instrument,  a  Roman 
Catholic  Home  Secretary,  she  may  do  this,  and 
she  will  be  wise  to  do  it.  Let  her  by  your  means, 
sir,  open  the  prison  of  one  of  whom  those  who 
love  her  not  have  foolishly  made  a  Martyr.  Let 
her  proclaim  from  the  housetops,  ^  Men,  speak  out 
your  utmost,  lay  bare  Nature  to  its  depths  ;  your 
liberation  will  be  my  justification,  for  although  you 
descend  into  Hell  you  will  only  be  following  my 
Master,  who  left  his  Cross,  a  flaming  symbol,  even 
there.^ 

May  I,  as  briefly  as  possible,  review  the  case  to 
which  I  solicit  your  earnest  attention  ? 

A  certain 

M.  Emile  Zola, 
whom  superficial  criticism  persists  in  classing  among 


I04  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

the  votaries  of  pleasure,  is  a  dreary  and  dismal 
gentleman  whose  mind  is  solely  exercised  on 
questions  of  moral  drainage  and  social  sewerage. 
He  goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that  Modern  Society  is 
full  of  disease  germs  scattered  through  the  air  from 
the  social  deposits  ;  and  to  prove  his  case,  he  takes 
us,  when  we  are  willing  to  be  improved,  right  down 
into  the  sewers  and  the  catacombs.  I  went  there 
lately  with  him ;  and  held  my  nose.  The  very 
raiment  of  my  guide,  when  we  emerged  into  the 
daylight,  was  redolent  of  offal  ;  it  looked  and  smelt 
unclean,  and  I  got  away  from  it  as  soon  as  possible, 
not  before  I  had  recognised,  however,  that  the  man 
was  right  in  some  measure,  and  that  the  drains 
were  bad.  Now,  it  never  occurred  to  me  for  one 
moment  that  poor  Zola  ought  to  be  given  into 
custody,  but  a  crowd  of  very  clean  persons  loudly 
clamoured  around  us,  and  messages  were  sent  for  the 
nearest  policeman.  Before  the  stern  myrmidon  of 
the  law  could  be  found,  Zola  had  disappeared,  but 
an  unfortunate  and  innocent  deputy,  told  off  to 
conduct  the  public  in  the  absence  of  his  principal, 
was  incontinently  laid  hold  of  by  one  Dogberry, 
haled  off  before  Justice  Shallow,  and  then  and 
there  condemned  as  a  public  nuisance.  Moral  : 
Leave  the  drains  alone  ;  let  the  world  wag,  even  if 
typhoid  fever  should  flourish.  Moral  number  two, 
very  acceptable  to  the  average  insular  intelligence  : 
Conceal    from    all  clean  people,    especially    young 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  105 

people,    the    fact   that    there   is    such    a    thmg    as 
sewerage  at  all. 

I  have  never  held  (and  I  do  not  hold  now)  the 
opinion  that  drainage  is  a  fit  subject  for  Art,  that 
men  grow  any  better  by  the  contemplation  of  what 
is  bestial  and  unpleasant  ;  indeed,  I  have  always 
been  puritan  enough  to  think  pornography 
nuisance.  It  is  one  thing,  however,  to  dislike  the 
obtrusion  of  things  unsavoury  and  abominable,  andj 
quite  another  to  regard  any  allusion  to  them  ai 
positively  crinhinol,  A  description  even  of  pig 
sties,  moreover,  may  sometimes  be  made  tolerable 
by  the  cunning  of  a  great  artist,  and  this  same  M. 
Zola,  though  a  dullard  au  fond,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  he  regards  pigsties  as  the  only  fore- 
ground for  his  lurid  moral  landscapes,  appears  to  be 
so  much  better  and  nobler  than  myself,  in  so  much 
as  he  loves  Truth  more  and  fears  consequences  less, 
that  I  have  again  and  again  taken  ojff  my  hat  to 
him  in  open  day.  His  zeal  may  be  mistaken,  but 
it  is  self-evident  ;  his  information  may  be  horrible, 
but  it  is  certainly  given  in  all  good  faith  ;  and  an 
honest  man  being  the  rarest  of  phenomena  in  all 
literature,  this  man  has  my  sympathy — though  my 
instinct  is  to  get  as  far  away  from  him  as 
possible. 

In  trying  on  more  than  one  occasion  to  do 
justice  to  his  sincerity,  while  seriously  finding 
fault  with  his  method,  I  have  had  to  be  constantly 
reminded  that  he  is  a  Frenchman ;  and  a  French- 


io6  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

man,  from  our  insular  point  of  view,  is  synonymous 
with  everything  that  is  unclean  and  detestable. 
Despite  the  fact  that  we  have  derived  for  hundreds 
of  years  all  our  '  ideas,'  such  as  they  are,  from 
France,  despite  the  fact  that  Frenchmen  have 
been  the  pioneers  of  Freedom  and  Free  Thought 
all  over  the  world,  we  still  preserve  the  old  super- 
stition that  a  Frenchman  is  born  a  ^  light '  person, 
whose  sole  conception  of  life  is  derived  from  his 
experiences  as  a  houlevardier.  The  English  race 
has  no  *  ideas  '  whatever  ;  indeed,  it  abominates 
'  ideas,'  and  is  thoroughly  practical  and  pragmatical 
in  its  views,  of  social  subjects  especially.  True, 
when  once  convinced  of  a  great  principle,  it  can 
hold  to  it,  as  our  Puritans  did  when  they  got  the 
lambent  torch  of  Protestantism  from  Geneva,  as 
our  philosophers  did  when  they  caught  the  reflex 
of  the  Fiery  Cross  of  Free  Thought  in  Paris ;  but 
we  work  by  tenacity,  like  the  bull-dog,  while 
Frenchmen,  like  the  greyhound,  work  by  sight. 
We  have  had  to  get  even  our  Byrons  and  our 
Shelleys  second-hand  from  the  Revolution.  We 
have  fought  inch  by  inch  against  the  obtrusion 
of  every  new  *  idea ';  then  at  last,  accepting  it,  we 
have  held  to  it  like  grim  Death.  Thus,  in  religion 
and  even  in  philosophy,  we  have  been  practically 
converted,  but  on  one  point,  that  of  social  statics 
and  their  expression  in  literature,  we  are  invul- 
nerable. We  won't  be  reformed  in  our  morality. 
We  decline  to  listen  to  anyone,  especially  a  priest 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  107 

or  a  Frenchman,  who  affirms  that  human  nature  is 
not  virtuous  by  instinct  and  by  predisposition. 
We  repudiate  all  '  ideas '  connected  with  the 
existence  of  moral  Hell.  We  still  our  consciences, 
approve  our  Social  Evil,  and  refuse  to  inspect  our 
drains.  While  doing  the  best  to  give  one  half  of 
the  community  a  foretaste  of  Hell  upon  earth,  we 
affirm  that  this  is  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds, 
and  that  English  civilization  is  the  only  possible 
civilization  consistent  with  the  welfare  of  a  troubled 
planet. 

In  this  spirit  of  disingenuous  optimism,  we  have 
organized 

Our  Latter  Inquisition 

— a  curious  conclave,  composed  of  all  phases  of 
character  and  opinion ;  with  Justice  Shallow  as 
chief  Inquisitor,  and  Messrs.  Dogberry  and  Verges 
as  watchmen  in  ordinary.  Decree  number  one  : 
let  all  '  deformed '  individuals,  and  especially  all 
Frenchmen,  be  '  run  in '  and  '  charged.'  Decree 
number  two  :  books  being  the  Devil's  engines,  all 
books  are  to  be  ^  inspected,'  and  if  found  guilty 
of  any  'ideas,'  summarily  burnt  or  expurgated. 
Decree  number  three  :  any  publisher  of  a  book 
calculated  to  destroy  our  cardinal  principle,  that 
this  is  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds,  is  to  be 
seized,  fined  and  imprisoned.  Decree  number 
four  :  that  public  virtue  is  impossible  without  the 
sanction  of  the  police,  and  (as  a  corollary)    that 


io8  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

public  taste  is  a   thing  strictly  within  the  deter- 
mination of  the  watchmen  and  custodians  of  our 
virtue.       Decree    number    five :    that    our    system 
of  sewerage  is  to  remain  in  the  region  of  Super- 
natural Mystery,  and  that  any  literature  touching 
upon  it  is  to  be  condignly  abolished     Imjprimantur, 
the    revised   New    Testament,   the    '  Lamplighter/ 
and    the    tracts    of    Christian    knowledge.       Con- 
demnantur,  all  poems,  all  fictions,  which  expose  the 
Gehenna    underground,    or    attack    the    moralities 
which  shine  above  it.      Expurgantiir,  Shakespeare, 
Dryden,   and    Byron   (the   last    delicately,   for    he 
was    a    lord).      Signed,    Shallow,    Grand    Inquisi- 
tor ;  Countersigned,  Dogberry,  Chief  Constable  in 
Ordinary.       In     the    intervals    of    our    pleasant 
Inquisition,  we  listen  blandly  to  a  droning  Military 
Person  who  beguiles  our  leisure  with  prospects  of 
a    general  Conscription,  and    who    holds    up    the 
German  system  of  providential  and  governmental 
superintendence    in    all    departments    of   life    and 
thought  as  the  beacon  of  modern  Civilization  !^ 
A  few  words  concerning  the  character  of 

Mr.  Vizetelly, 

the  imprisoned  publisher,  may  assist  you  to  take  an 
impartial  view  of  the  situation.  His  entire  life 
had  been  spent  in  the  service  of  art,  journalism  and 
literature.  Bound  over  as  an  apprentice  to  his 
father,  James  Henry  Vizetelly,  who  had  one  of  the 
*  See  Lord  Wolseley's  utterances,  ijasshu. 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL,  109 

largest  printing  businesses  in  the  City  of  London, 
he  acquired  his  own  freedom  by  servitude,  though 
members  of  the  family  had  been  freemen  of  the 
City  for  several  generations.  Subsequently  Mr. 
Henry  Vizetelly  was  apprenticed  to  Orrin  Smith, 
the  well-known  wood  engraver,  and  proved  his  best 
pupil  ;  the  works  containing  wood  engravings 
signed  *  H.  Vizetelly  '  are  nowadays  sought  after 
by  connoisseurs.  Mr.  Vizetelly's  connection  with 
journalism  dates  from  the  foundation  of  the 
Illustrated  London  News.  The  first  ^  idea '  of 
that  publication  germinated  in  the  brain  of  Mr. 
Herbert  Ingram,  who  thought  of  establishing  a 
kind  of  Illustrated  Police  Gazette.  Mr.  Vizetelly 
prevailed  upon  him,  however,  to  make  the  publica- 
tion more  comprehensive  in  its  scope,  wrote  the 
prospectus,  and  largely  contributed  towards  launch- 
inof  the  first  number.  This  was  the  foundation 
of  illustrated  journalism.  Soon  afterwards  Mr. 
Vizetelly,  having  somewhat  abruptly  severed  his 
connection  with  the  Illustrated  London  News,  went 
into  publishing.  He  was  the  first  to  introduce 
'  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin '  and  the  poems  of  Edgar 
Allan  Poe  to  the  English  public.  He  also  did  a 
great  deal  to  popularize  the  immaculate  Mr.  Long- 
fellow in  England.  The  '  Evangeline,'  illustrated 
by  Sir  John  Gilbert,  was  due  mainly  to  his 
endeavours ;  also  the  '  Hyperion,'  illustrated  by 
Birket  Foster.  For  the  latter  he  visited  all  the 
localities  mentioned  in  the  work  (accompanied   by 


^^   OP  THE      *'>^ 


no  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELD 

Foster),  and  sketches  were  made  on  the  spot  to 
serve  as  illustrations.  This  'Hyperion'  is  very 
rare  nowadays,  and  fetches  a  high  price.  About 
the  time  of  the  Crimean  War  Mr.  Vizetelly 
started  the  Illustrated  Times,  and  gathered  round 
him  a  number  of  clever  writers — then  mostly 
unknown  to  fame,  but  many  of  whom  have  since 
made  their  way  in  the  world — Thackeray,  the 
Brothers  Brough,  the  Brothers  Mayhew,  Sala, 
Edmund  Yates,  Sutherland  Edwards,  Frederick 
Greenwood,  and  many  others.  Among  the  artists 
were  John  Gilbert,  Birket  Foster,  Julian  Portch, 
and  Gustave  Dore  (then  first  introduced  to  the 
English  pubHc).  Whilst  starting  and  editing  this 
new  publication,  Mr.  Yizetelly  devoted  considerable 
time  and  energy  to  furthering  the  general  interests 
of  his  profession.  He  acted  as  Honorary  Secretary 
to  the  Association  formed  for  the  Repeal  of  the 
Paper  Duty,  and  in  regard  to  the  abolition  of  the 
Newspaper  Stamp  he  took  decisive  action  by  issu- 
ing several  numbers  of  the  Illustrated  Times  with- 
out the  stamp.  The  Board  of  Revenue  prosecuted 
him,  claiming  a  fine  of  several  thousand  pounds. 
This  was  never  enforced,  however.  The  question 
was  taken  up  by  public  men,  and  soon  afterwards 
the  Stamp  impost  was  abolished.  In  1865  he 
became  Paris  correspondent  of  the  Illustrated 
london  Neivs — went  through  the  siege  of  Paris 
and  Commune  for  that  journal — organized  a 
service  of  sketches  by  balloon   post,   so   that    the 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  iii 

paper  was  able  to  supply  a  more  complete  pictorial 
record  of  the  siege  than  appeared  in  any  other 
journal.  He  afterwards  represented  the  Illus- 
trated London  Neivs  at  Berlin  and  Vienna — acted 
as  British  Wine  Juror  at  Vienna,  1873,  and  Paris, 
1878  —  wrote  a  number  of  text-books  upon 
European  wines,  after  visiting  all  the  wine  produc- 
ing districts  on  the  Continent,  Madeira,  Canary 
Isles,  etc.  These  books  are  standard  works  of 
reference. 

As  an  author,  Mr.  Vizetelly  has  also  written  on 
Berlin  and  Paris.  His  'Story  of  the  Diamond 
Necklace '  completely  unravelled  what  was  long 
considered  a  historical  puzzle — supplementing  and 
correcting  Carlyle's  well-known  essay  in  many 
important  particulars.  He  has  also  contributed 
numerous  articles  to  Household  Words,  under 
Charles  Dickens,  and  was  on  various  occasions  a 
correspondent  of  the  Times,  Daily  News,  and  Pall 
Mall  Gazette,  He  started  his  present  publishing 
business  in  1880,  and  thereby,  as  I  shall  show, 
did  much  yeoman's  service  for  first-class  literature. 

That,  Bight  Hon.  Sir,  is  the  record  of  the  man 
whom  the  Vigilance  Committee,  trading  on  the 
prudery  of  the  English  community,  casts  into 
prison.  His  crime  is  that  he  has  not  presumed 
the  business  of  publishing  to  include  the  prero- 
gatives of  a  censor  morum ;  that  he  has  published 
in  the  English  language  what  nearly  every  educated 
person  reads  in  the  French  ;  that,  in  a  word,  he 


IT2  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELD 


has  introduced  to  the  uninitiated  the  works  of 
Emile  Zola  and  one  or  two  writers  of  doubtful 
decency.  Even  if  we  admit  his  error  in  this  last 
particular,  do  not  his  long  services  far  outweigh  his 
indiscretions  ?  Has  he  not  been  a  brave  sergeant 
in  the  army  of  English  journalism  ?  But  I  decline 
to  admit  his  error.  I  affirm  that  Emile  Zola  was 
bound  to  be  printed,  translated,  read.  Little  as  I 
sympathize  with  his  views  of  life,  greatly  as  I 
loathe  his  pictures  of  human  vice  and  depravity,  T 
have  learned  much  from  him,  and  others  may  learn 
much ;  and  had  I  been  unable  to  read  French, 
these  bald  translations  would  have  been  to  me  an 
intellectual  help  and  boon.  I  like  to  have  the 
Devil's  case  thoroughly  stated,  because  I  know  it 
refutes  itself  As  an  artist,  Zola  is  unjustifiable  ; 
as  a  moralist,  he  is  answerable  ;  but  as  a  free 
man,  a  man  of  letters,  he  can  decline  to  accept  the 
fiat  of  a  criminal  tribunal. 

The  details  of  an  interview  with  Mr.  Coote, 
Secretary  of  the  Vigilance  Committee,  compel 
me  to  add  a  few  words  touching  the  conduct  of 

The  Person  for  the  Prosecution  ; 

and  to  begin  with,  I  take  leave  to  say  that  Mr. 
Coote's  assertions  were  simply  infamous.  ^  I  think 
it  served  Vizetelly  right,'  said  this  Secretary  of 
the  Viofilance  Committee ;  '  look  over  his  cata- 
logue,  and  form  your  own  opinion.'     May   I  ask, 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  113 

Sir,  if  you  liave  looked  over  his  catalogue  ?  / 
have  done  so,  and  with  the  following  result. 
Besides  the  works  of  Zola,  Flaubert  and  Daudet, 
many  of  them  admirable  in  every  sense  of  the 
word,  Mr.  Vizetelly  has  issued  to  the  English 
public  the  works  of  Count  Tolstoi  and  of  Fedor 
Dostoieffsky  ;  an  admirably  edited  series  of  the 
Old   Dramatists  ;  Mr.  Sala's  '  America  Revisited,' 

*  Under  the  Sun,'  '  Dutch  Pictures,'  and  ^  Paris 
Herself    Again ';     the     immaculate     M.     Ohnet's 

*  Ironmaster ';  Mr.  Greenwood's  ^  In  Strange 
Company  ';  M.  Coppee's  '  Passer-by  '  (Le  Passant); 
the  stories  of  Gaboriau  and  Du  Boisgobey ;  a 
whole  library  of  brilliant  social  romances,  in- 
eluding  tales  by  Cherbuliez,  Theuriet,  About, 
Feval  and  Merimee  ;  and,  to  crown  all,  his  (Mr. 
Vizetelly 's)  own  excellent  works  on  *  The  Diamond 
Necklace '  and  ^  Wines  of  the  World.'  These, 
among  other  publications  equally  worthy  and  in- 
offensive, form  the  hulk  of  the  catalogue  for  which 
the  Secretary  of  the  Vigilance  Committee  would 
keep  an  honourable  man  in  prison.  Does  Mr. 
Coote  ever  read  anything  outside  the  literature 
of  the  '  Lamplighter '  and  the  '  Old  Helmet '? 
Does  he  see  no  difference  between  even  *  La 
Curee '  or  '  Madame  Bovary  '  and  the  sealed-up 
books  sold  sometimes  in  Holywell  Street  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that  it  would  be  as  rational  to  consult 
the  first  area-haunting  policeman  on  the  ethical 
quality  of  literature,  as  to  accept  the   evidence  of 


114  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

a  censor    who   is    either    a    mischief-maker  or  an 
ignoramus. 

It  is   no   exaggeration   to   say    that    the  whole 
existence  of  the   so-called  Vigilance  Committee  is 
an  infamy,  and  that  the  treatment  of  Mr.  Yizetelly 
is  merely  a  specimen  of  Dogberry's  evidence  and 
Shallow's    justice.      The    misfortune    is     that  Mr. 
Vizetelly,  instead  of  taking  his  stand  like  a  man  on 
his   total   work  as  publisher,  pleaded  in  the   first 
instance  '  guilty.'     Possibly  he  knew  British  judges 
and  British  juries  better  than  I  do  ;  but  the  result 
is   lamentable,  and   I  repeat   my   question,   where 
is  the  persecution  to  stop  ?     Does  any  sane  man 
imagine  that  it  is  really  corrupt  books  that  destroy 
Society,  and  that  any  suppression  of  literature  will 
make  Society  any  better  ?     No  ;  these  books,  where 
they    are     corrupt,    merely    represent     corruption 
already  existing  —  are  merely    signs  and  symbols 
of  social  disease.      The  argument  that  they  bring 
*  blushes  to  the  cheek  of  a  young  person  '  is  irrele- 
vant.     They  are  not  written  for  the  young  person  ; 
and    if    they    are,   the  young  person    will  get  at 
them,  now  and  for  ever,  in  spite  of  the  policeman. 
Criticise  them,  attack  them,  point  out  their  defor- 
mities   and    absurdities    as    much    as   you  please, 
and    as   much   as  I  myself    have    done ;    but    do 
not    imagine    that    you    will    purify    the    air  by 
suppressing    literature,     or    that    you    can    make 
people    virtuous    by  penal    clauses    and    Acts    of 
Parliament. 


O^i  DESCENDING  INTO  HE  LI.  115 

And  the  harmless  Ohnet,  and  the  stainless 
Coppee,  and  the  good  Theuriet,  and  the  great 
Tolstoi,  and  the  sublmie  Dostoieffsky,  not  to  speak 
of  the  full-blooded  Old  Dramatists  and  the  genial 
Mr.  George  Augutus  Sala,  are  all  practically  con- 
demned to  Limbo  in  the  lump,  under  the  shadow 
of  Mr.  Vizetelly's  awful  '  Catalogue '!  This  pre- 
cious Dogberry  of  a  Vigilance  Committee  is  left 
to  straddle  with  his  watchman's  Lanthorn,  and 
shriek  '  Deformed  !  Deformed  !'  over  the  mutilated 
remains  of  Art  and  Literature.  To-morrow,  per- 
chance, he  will  toddle  up  to  Burlington  House, 
and  insist  on  either  seizing  or  clothing  all  the 
'  improper  '  pictures  of  nude  ladies,  and  we  shall 
soon  have  the  President  of  the  Royal  Academy 
committed  to  prison  for  daring  to  paint  a  Venus 
without  a  bathing  costume,  or  an  Ariadne  without 
a  petticoat. 

For  my  own  part,  I  hold  the  matter  so  serious  N 
that  I  am  appealing  to  you,  on  the  highest  grounds 
of  all,  religious  grounds,  for  Mr.  Vizetelly's  im- 
mediate release.  If  there  is  any  manhood  among 
English  writers,  they  will  see  that  the  matter 
is  one  involving  their  own  liberties,  now  and  in  / 
the    near    future."^       If   there   is   any   consistency 

*  That  there  might  be  no  doubt  on  this  head,  the  Vigilance 
Committee,  in  a  letter  published  June  25,  1889,  warned  English 
authors  to  '  look  out,'  and  not  to  go  too  far,  or  they,  too,  might 
get  into  trouble  !  But  there  wasn't  much  danger — not  one  con- 
temporary English  author  except  myself  protested  against  the 
persecution ! 

8—2 


ii6  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

among  English  publishers,  they  also  will  contend 
for  freedom  and  immunity  from  constabulary  super- 
vision.     Special   Providence,    as   embodied  in  the 
form  of  an  amateur  moralist-detective,  is  on  their 
track.      We  shall  see  our  beloved  ^  Ouida  '  run  in 
to  Bow  Street,  and  '  Ouida's  '  publishers  whimper- 
ing by  her  in  the  dock.      Every  publisher  of  the 
atrocious  works  of  Shakespeare  will  stand  in  the 
pillory.      As  for  Mr.  Vizetelly,  he  may  indeed  have 
cause  to  cry  ]peccGuvi  if  neither   authors  nor  pub- 
lishers come  to  his  aid.      He  is  seventy  years  of 
age,  he  is  a  litterateur  as  well  as  a  publisher,  and, 
according   to  the  latest  accounts,    he  is    suffering 
greatly.      If  it  were  only  for  his   introduction  to 
the   public   of   one  great  and   perhaps  unequalled 
book,    '  Crime   and  Punishment,'    I  should  regard 
him,   not  as   a   criminal,   but    as  a  martyr  and   a 
public  benefactor.      Here  is  a  good  chance,  Pight 
Hon.  Sir,  to  show  that  the  mantle  of  Beaconsfield 
has  fallen  on  a  Tory  Home  Secretary  !      Benjamin 
Disraeli   might  have  had  a   thousands  faults,  but 
he  never  forgot  his  literary  inheritance,  and  in  a 
case  like  the  present  he  would  have  defended  the 
freedom  of  letters  against  a  whole  army  of  canting 
busybodies  and  prurient  'Vigilance  Committee-men.' 
For  all  this  civil  interference  with  spiritual  pre- 
rogative, Pight   Hon.   Sir,  must  be   very  distaste- 
ful to  the  Church  of  which  you  are  a  distinguished 
representative.      In  matters  spiritual,   which   to  a 
great  extent  are  matters  literary,  that  Church  has 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  117 

always  upheld  her  own  tests  as  final,  and  often, 
while  she  has  burned  a  religious  heretic,  she  has 
afibrded  sanctuary  to  a  carnal  offender.  She 
trembled,  it  is  true,  before  Galileo  and  other  rec- 
tangular dogmatists  of  scientific  discovery,  but  she 
never  feared  pornography,  or  thought  that  it  could 
overthrow  the  higher  standards  of  human  nature. 
One  of  her  most  logical  postulates,  indeed,  has 
been  that  Man  is  evil  by  inheritance  and  by  pre- 
disposition, and  that  only  by  Faith  or  Spiritual 
Knowledge  can  he  be  saved.  Hence  her  gentleness 
to  the  literature  of  Heathendom,  her  complacency 
in  dealing  with  purely  human  Art  and  Letters. 
While  preserving  the  Christian  documents  she  was 
quite  content  to  leave  Humanity  its  Sappho,  its 
Lucretius,  its  Juvenal,  its  Catullus,  even  its 
Aristophanes.  For  though  she  was  persuaded  to 
make  short  work  of  schismatics,  who  after  all  have 
little  knowledge  of  life,  she  was  ever  kindly  to  the 
poets,  the  most  incontinent  of  whom  knew  life 
thoroughly.  She  went  with  Dante  into  Hell,  and 
she  ascended  with  Calderon  up  to  Heaven  ;  but 
loving  also  her  cakes  and  ale,  she  preserved  the 
gaudriole  for  the  amusement  of  her  monks.  She 
has,  in  short,  been  a  friend  to  belles  lettres,  even 
the  most  pornographic.  In  these  respects,  as  in 
many  others,  I  sympathize  with  her.  Far  less 
human  and  sympathetic  has  been  her  gloomy  half- 
sister,  Protestantism.  If  Protestantism  had  its 
way  we  should  have  no  books  except  One,  which 


ii8  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

is  excellent,  no  doubt,  but  not  always  amusing. 
In  a  word,  this  is  a  quite  tenable  proposition  :  that 
Literature  has  more  to  fear  from  the  Church  which 
canonizes  and  exalts  one  Book,  than  from  the  Church 
which  asserts  that  Human  Nature  shall  not  be  at 
the  mercy  of  any  Book  ivliatsoever. 

The  days  are  long  past  when  even  the  Church, 
Roman  and  Catholic,  had  any  real  cause  to  be 
afraid  of  human  flights  of  fancy,  or  any  anxiety  to 
suppress  them  ;  more  than  one  of  her  monks  has 
chuckled  over  Pantagruel,  and  I  know  that  certain 
of  her  priests  have  followed  with  feverish  anxiety 
the  temptations  of  a  certain  Abbe  Mouret.  Putting 
certain  little  fanciful  dogmas  aside,  the  Roman 
Church  is  far  more  tolerant  to  human  necessities 
and  human  weaknesses  than  any  of  her  offshoots — 
nay,  than  even  her  grim  Arch  Enemy,  the  Church 
of  Science  ;  and  than  this  last  Church  she  is  in 
one  respect  infinitely  wiser,  that  her  last  word  is 
one  of  pity  and  comfort  for  human  backsliding. 

The  pity  of  Science  is  the  pity  of  Despair  ;  the 
pity  of  the  Church  is  the  pity  of  Faith  and  Hope, 
and  of  Regeneration. 

True,  you  say  as  of  old,  '  Unless  a  man  believes 
in  my  confession  of  faith,  he  shall  surely  perish — 
but  if  he  believes  he  shall  be  saved,'  an  assumption 
which  Scientists  amuse  themselves  with,  to  their 
own  final  consternation.  For,  translated  into  the 
language  of  common-sense,  your  dogma  means  that 
foulness,     sin,    physical    disease,    hereditary    taint, 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  119 

have  no  power  to  touch  the  Soul — that  he  who 
beheves  in  the  Supreme  Love  and  Pity  shall, 
despite  them  all,  save  his  Soul  alive  ;  whereas  that 
other  Church  of  Science  teaches  what  I  contend 
to  be  a  foolish  heresy,  that  the  Soul  can  be  saved 
only  by  the  Body  in  which  it  dwells,  that  by  the 
law  of  heredity  the  Body  may  destroy  and  elimi- 
nate even  Man's  immortal  part. 

As  I  write   an  illustration  comes  to  my  hand.      ] 
A  certain  Scandinavian  writer,  who  is  to  M.  Zola     V 
what  the  dustman  of  a  suburb  is  to  the  scavenger  of  ^ y  ^ 
a  city,  has  written  a  play  called  '  Gengangere ' — ^ 
that  is,  in  French,  *  Les  Revenants,'  and  in  English  -^  ^ 
'Ghosts.'     To   get   his   material   he   had   literally,       '   . 
like   others  before  him,  to   enter   Hell,  nor   do    I  ^.     wi 
blame  him,  though  I  doubt  his  moral.      Picturing  1^^ 
an  individual  whose  nature  is  poisoned  through  and    j^^^v/^^ 
through   by   hereditary  taint,   who  is  morally  and     {^^^^-^ 
physically   diseased  because    he   inherits    from    an 
unclean  paternity,  he  leaves  this  individual  in  the 
corruption    of    hopeless    idiocy,    gibbering    at  the 
Sun.      No  one  ray  of  Hope  brightens  the  tableau, 
but  the  cruel  consuming  Sun  drinks  up  this  wasted 
life  like  a  drop  of  dew.      A  solemn  and  an  awful 
truth,  says  Science.      But  apart  from  the  question 
(never  yet  fully  reasoned  out  by  physiologists)  of 
how  far   the   spark  of  life   dudes   the   taints  cast 
upon  it,  of  how  far,  for  example,   even  the  loath- 
some sores  of  syphilis  may  be  crystallized  after  a 
generation   into   cells   of  prismatic   thought  (as  is 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HEIL. 


possibly  true  in  certain  examples  of  meningitis), 
the  lesson  we  are  taught  in  this  doleful  drama 
leaves  moral  questions  entirely  within  the  domain 
of  physiology.  Now,  I,  personally,  refuse  to  exist 
in  that  most  melancholy  domain  ;  and  here,  again, 
human  evidence  is  with  me.  One  miserable  infant, 
almost  a  foetus  in  size  and  development,  became  the 
ALrouet  whose  voice  rang  ground  the  world  and 
liberated  Galas.  The  strumous  Keats  faced  the 
Sun,  and  cast  it  glaring  on  his  canvas  as  *  Hype- 
rion.' Unhealthy  men,  tainted  men,  weakly  men, 
have  dominated  the  world  of  art  and  literature, 
where  Michael  Angelos  and  Benvenuto  Cellinis 
have  been  the  exceptions.  I  have  known  a  man 
reduced  by  the  fault  of  his  progenitors  to  a  state 
bordering  on  mental  decrepitude,  and  3^et  that 
man  was  sane  and  wise,  a  beautiful  soul,  happy, 
and  a  peacemaker.  I  decline,  then,  to  believe  that 
Original  Sin  and  Hereditary  Taint,  though  they 
exist  loosely  in  your  dogma  and  tenaciously  in  that 
of  Science,  can  cast  me  down  into  nothingness.  I 
knoiv  the  Soul  eludes  the  Body  at  every  stage  of 
our  development.  I  find  every  day  that  perfectly 
balanced  structure,  the  mens  sana  in  corjjore  sano, 
is  utterly  deaf  to  the  music  tainted  and  polluted 
structures  hear.  A  perfectly  healthy  man  is  fre- 
quently a  monster,  generally  a  mere  machine,  and 
not  till  that  boasted  body  of  his  is  twisted  and 
tortured,  carbonadoed  and  shaken  to  pieces,  does  he 
become  spiritualized. 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  121 

Now,  why  should  the  Church,  which  goes  as  far 
as  this  with  me,  and  decHnes  to  accept  any  text 
but  that  which  is  spiritual,  fear 

The  Devil's  Evidence, 

the  argument  for  the  Body,  the  special  plea  of 
cheap  Science  ?  If  the  Church  does  not  fear  it, 
the  new  Inquisition  does.  A  Vigilance  Committee 
casts  Mr.  Vizetelly,  the  publisher,  into  prison,  for 
simply  permitting  a  scientific  scavenger  to  produce 
his  frightful  documents  ;  while  a  no  less  vigilant 
Lord  Chamberlain  refuses  under  any  circumstances 
to  let  '  Gengangere  '  be  performed  in  English  upon 
the  English  stage.  No  ;  these  things  must  be 
veiled,  the  argument  on  the  other  side  must  not 
be  stated,  the  descent  into  Hell  must  never  be 
alluded  to,  except  by  those  who  are  supposed  to 
keep  the  Keys.  Surely  there  is  no  truth  which 
Science  or  Art  can  bring  to  light,  which  Infalli- 
bilit}^  should  fear?  Surely  Satan  should  be 
permitted  to  argue  out  his  case  ?  *  No,'  say  the 
Vigilance  Committee  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain, 
^  no,  a  thousand  times ;  since  sewerage  is  a  Mystery, 
and  children  and  young  persons  might  overhear 
the  argument  and  be  contaminated — that  is  to  say, 
converted.'  A  foolish  fear  !  a  feeble  superstition  ! 
The  argument  will  out  somehow,  in  spite  of  all 
Inquisitions.  Human  nature  will  not  suffer  its 
own    salvation    or    damnation   to   be   discussed    in 


122  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 


camerd.  The  matter  must  be  fought  in  open 
day. 

Sometimes,  Right  Hon.  Sir,  your  Church  has 
feared  the  truth,  and  on  every  occasion  when  she 
has  done  so,  the  result  to  herself  has  been  lament- 
able. Yet  it  is  to  the  Truth,  the  Eternal  Verity, 
that  she  makes  her  appeal,  pledging  herself  to  its 
infallibility.  Now,  I  could  go  through  her  dogmas 
one  by  one,  and  show  that  they  are  constructed 
impregnably  on  the  instincts  of  human  nature  ; 
only  she  herself,  unfortunately,  has  misunderstood 
them,  and  hence  the  hideous  historical  record 
which  constitutes  the  popular  indictment  against 
her.  Yet,  amid  all  follies,  all  contradictions,  all 
cruelty,  all  schism,  she  has  kept  one  particular 
glory — her  patience  with  physical  deterioration, 
her  Faith  that  7io  carnal  sin  07-  carnal  hnoivledge 
can  really  wreck  the  Soul.  She  has  often  been 
afraid  of  phantoms  of  her  own  conjuring,  never  of 
flesh  and  blood  ;  ^  ideas '  have  terrified  her,  but 
men  and  women  have  always  been  her  sympathetic 
study. 

In  that  masterpiece  of  English  eloquence,  the 
'  Areopagitica,'  the  trumpet  note  of  which  is  now 
faintly  heard  in  literature,  our  great  Epic  Poet 
has  marshalled  every  argument,  produced  every 
proof,  in  favour  of  the  Liberty  of  Unlicensed 
Printing.  Nobler  words  never  flowed  from  the 
lips  of  man.  Wise  on  this  as  on  all  other  vital 
questions,  Milton,  a  Greek  god  in  the  gray  robes 


ON  DESCENDING  IT^TO  HELL.  123 

of  a  Puritan,  through  which  his  roseate  nakedness 

shone   in   celestial    beauty,   spoke   more    than   one 

word  for  the  poor  Devil.      He,  at  least,  kne\A'  that 

there  is  weakness  in  Humanity  as  well  as  strength, 

and  that  the  primitive  instincts  are  perennial ;  for 

had  he  not  painted  Eden  on  Adam's  marriage  day, 

when 

'  To  the  nuptial  bower 
He  led  her  blushing  like  the  morn,' 

and  had  he  not  pictured  to  us  the  amatory  exploits 
of  Zephyr  and  other  kindred  spirits  ?  True,  he 
appears  to  reserve  to  his  friends  of  the  Parliament 
the  right  of  destroying  such  books  as  are  wholly 
prejudicial  to  decency  and  harmful  to  the  State  ; 
'  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,'  he  adds,  '  as  good 
almost  kill  a  good  man  as  kill  a  good  book  :  who 
kills  a  man  kills  a  reasonable  creature,  God's  imaofe, 
but  he  who  destroys  a  good  book  kills  reason  itself, 
kills  the  image  of  God  as  it  were  in  the  eye.' 
Even  as  the  holy  Chrysostom  nightly  studied 
Aristophanes,  so  did  the  blameless  Milton  nourish 
his  mind  on  the  still  more  scurrilous  pages  of  our 
own  comic  dramatists.  '  I  cannot,'  he  contends, 
*  praise  a  fugitive  or  cloistered  virtue  ;  assuredly  we 
bring  not  innocence  into  the  world,  but  impurity 
much  rather  :  that  which  purifies  us  is  trial,  and 
trial  is  by  what  is  contrary.'  '  Banish  all  objects 
of  lust,  shut  up  all  youth  into  the  severest  discipKne 
that  can  be  exercised  in  any  hermitage,  ye  cannot 
make  them  chaste  that  came  not  thither  so.' 


124  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

Who  is  to  decide  for  us  what  is  good,  if  our  own 
nature  and  inspiration  are  powerless  to  help  us  ? 
Is  it  to  be  the  Pope  of  Rome,  or  any  deputy 
Cardinal,  or  any  Scottish  Elder  of  the  Kirk,  or 
some  member  of  a  newly-created  City  Council,  or, 
finally,  Mr.  Justice  Shallow  of  the  law  courts  ? 
There  are  zealots  who  would  burn  the  works  of 
Shakespeare,  as  there  were  zealots  who  cursed  and 
anathematized  the  works  of  Burns.  To  a  certain 
order  of  intelligence,  all  literature  is  profane, 
dangerous,  inexpedient.  Large  portions  of  the 
community  believe  any  stage  play  whatsoever  is 
an  abomination  ;  large  portions  warn  us  that  the 
reading  of  any  work  of  fiction  or  fairy  tale  is  sinful 
and  pernicious.  Whither  then  might  we  turn  for 
guidance,  if  not  to  the  Supreme  Church  which, 
after  burning  her  own  effete  Index,  may  aflfirm  the 
perfect 

Lawfulness  of  all  Human  Evidence, 

knowing    that    she   can,   by   the    strength   of   her 
adamantine  logic,  refute  every  carnal  lie  ? 

I  can  assure  you.  Right  Hon.  Sir,  that  it  is  in 
no  spirit  of  levity  that  I,  who  have  little  love  for 
Roman  Catholicism,  suggest  a  way  in  which  the 
Church  Infallible  may  yet  be  saved.  That  way  is,  as 
I  have  suggested,  to  perform  a  latter-day  miracle' 
and  cast  in  her  lot  with  the  Church  of  Free 
Thought  and  Free  Speech.  For  I  regard  this 
proposed  Suppression  of  Literature  as  an  encroach- 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  125 

ment  of  Puritanism  (which  has  always  hated 
literature)  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Pragmatic 
Science  upon  the  other.  Puritanism  affirms  with 
gloomy  pertinacity  that  we  are  lost  if  we  are  not 
strictly  moral,  ^.e.,  moral  from  the  Puritan  point  of 
view  ;  Science  avers  with  vehemence  that  its  raw 
and  half-verified  discoveries  are  to  regulate  the 
conduct  of  our  lives,  and  promises,  if  things  are 
so  ordered,  that  Humanity  will  in  due  course,  after 
an  era  or  two,  arrive  at  the  perfectly-balanced 
Mind  in  the  perfectly-balanced  Body — a  Teutonic 
condition  to  be  found  even  now  in  the  Fatherland  ! 
Neither  Puritanism  nor  Science,  however,  affect 
the  Church's  prerogative  by  one  hair.  The  one 
takes  too  much  care  of  our  conduct,  the  other  is 
too  anxious  about  our  health.  The  Church  alone, 
at  this  supreme  crisis,  when  an  innocent  man  is 
cast  into  prison,  when  the  suppression  of  literature 
is  threatened,  and  when  neither  Puritan  nor 
Scientist  cares  to  utter  one  word  of  public  pro- 
testation— the  Church  alone,  I  say,  can  command 
the  situation,  and  deny  the  right  of  synods  or 
vestries  to  silence  any  voices,  even  those  from  Hell. 
Her  spiritual  terminology  is,  after  all,  far  nearer 
to  the  pantheism  of  Servetus,  than  to  the  dismal 
anthropomorphism  of  John  Calvin.  '  I  have  no 
doubt,'  said  the  Spaniard,  '  that  this  bench,  this 
table,  and  all  you  can  point  to  around  us  is  of  the 
substance  of  God  ;'  adding,  when  it  was  objected 
that  on  his  showing  the  Devil   must  be  of  God's 


126  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

substance  too,  'I  do  not  doubt  it  ;  all  things 
whatever  are  part  of  God,  and  Nature  is  His 
substantial  manifestation.'  For  which  and  other 
pestilent  heresies,  Servetus,  to  the  huge  joy  of 
John  Calvin,  was  burned  alive,  roasting  first  for 
two  hours  in  the  flames  of  a  slow  fire,  and  begging 
piteously  that  they  would  put  on  more  wood,  or 
do  something  to  end  his  torture. 

Now,  all  such  cruelties  and  abominations, 
together  with  all  the  schisms  and  heresies  of  the 
Churches,  have  arisen  (l)  from  the  human  anxiety 
to  be  too  rectangular,  too  scientific,  and  (2)  from 
the  disposition  of  novices  in  discovery  to  force 
their  opinions  upon  their  neighbours.  Just  as 
little  as  Metaphysics  could  tell  the  Church  of  the 
real  nature  of  God,  while  tempting  its  hearers  to 
tear  the  human  images  of  God  asunder,  can 
Physical  Science  tell  us  of  the  real  nature  and 
destiny  of  Man.  Humanity,  at  the  present  issue, 
pines  to  free  itself  from  all  arbitrary  assumptions  ; 
it  yearns  for  the  liberty  to  inquire,  in  its  own  way  ; 
and  it  is  out  of  lay  books,  to  no  little  extent,  that 
its  knowledge  must  be  derived.  Das  mehr  lAcht 
hereinJcomme !  it  cries  with  Goethe,  the  Pagan. 
Just  as  certainly  as  the  light  which  leads  astray 
may  (as  Burns  protested)  be  '  light  from  Heaven,' 
so  may  the  light  which  guides  and  saves  be  light 
from  Hell.  To  drape  one  half  of  the  human  figure 
is  not  to  prove  the  whole  structure  to  be  celestial  ; 
to  ignore  the  existence  of  Evil  is  not  to  ensure  the 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  127 


triumph  of  Good.      The  Hterature  of  Hell  is  God's 
literature  too. 

How  well  has  suppression  worked  in  other 
countries  ?  Take  Italy,  for  example,  a  country  of 
which  both  Providence  and  Priesthood  have  taken 
such  particular  care  ;  the  chosen  home  of  the  Index 
and  the  winking  Virgin  ;  the  region  of  Pompeii 
and  of  oggetti  osceni,  into  which  neither  women  nor 
children  are  suffered  to  enter.  There,  obscene 
things  are  carefully  hidden,  literature  is'  wistfully 
burked — with  such  stupendous  good  to  the  com- 
munity that  dirt  and  disease  and  libertinage  flourish 
up  to  the  very  gates  of  the  Vatican.  Then  take 
France,  with  which  Providence  has  always  been 
in  more  or  less  of  a  temper,  where  literary  freedom 
has  run  to  licence,  and  where  Art  is  synonymous 
with  independence,  not  to  say  looseness,  of  morality. 
In  France,  the  domestic  affections  flourish  to 
wonderment,  and  the  idea  of  family  relationship 
is  strangely  sacred  ;  insomuch  that  even  in  polluted 
Paris,  on  the  stage,  the  one  sentiment  which 
*  brings  down  the  house '  is  the  sentiment  of 
parental  or  filial  love.  Then  take  Germany, 
strangled  by  the  governmental  Providence,  and 
reaching  to  its  apex  of  licensed  infamy  in  Berlin  : 
a  free  nation  without  a  free  thought,  smothered 
by  its  own  strength  of  Nationality,  straddled  over 
by  a  Martinet  of  pipes  and  beer  ;  the  Fatherland 
which  every  German  adores,  and  escapes  from  at 
the  first  opportunity.      Then   take   England,   still 


128  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

free,  in  spite  of  the  god  Jingo  ;  still  merry,  in  spite 
of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Grundy  and  his  wife  ;  yet  the 
chosen  home  of  the  '  young  person,'  the  land  where 
literature  is  under  the  protecting  wing  of  Mr. 
Mudie,  and  where  the  moribund  drama  gasps  and 
struggles  Desdemona-like  under  the  smothering 
pillow  of  the  blindly  jealous  Lord  Chamberlain. 
It  is  with  England,  of  course,  that  the  present 
inquiry  is  most  concerned.  With  a  literature  un- 
equalled for  breadth  and  power,  with  Shakespeare 
throned  and  crowned,  and  Milton  uttering  the 
trumpet  notes  of  freedom,  England  still  languishes 
without  ideals  or  ideas.  She  has  had  her  Jonathan 
Swift  and  her  Henry  Fielding,  but  she  has  never 
had  her  Rousseau — never  possessed  one' man  since 
Milton  to  stand  fearlessly  between  the  two  opposing 
forces  of  Superstition  and  Freedom,  and  to  utter 
the  gospel  of  reconciliation ;  to  denounce  the 
Priestcraft  of  Religion  with  one  breath,  and  the 
Priestcraft  of  Science  with  the  next ;  to  go  down 
into  HelJ's  most  sulphurous  depths,  and  to  learn 
that  the  only  light  even  there  is  Light  reflected 
from  Heaven. 

For  nothing  in  Roman  Catholicism  is  so  beyond 
contention  as  the  dogma  that  Hell  is — a  belief  which 
it  holds  in  common  with  all  creeds  called  Christian. 
It  remained  for  a  great  thinker,  Emmanuel 
Swedenborg,  to  establish  the  fact  that  Hell  is  not 
merely  a  locality,  but  also  an  omnipresent  '  con- 
dition.'     I  know  scarcely  one  great  English  classic, 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  129 

from  '  Othello  '  to  *  Tom  Jones/  from  '  Tom  Jones " 
to  Burns'  *  Address  to  the  Deil/  which  has  not 
illustrated  the  theory  that 

Hell  Exists, 

and  that  the  Devil,  who  is  often  very  humorous 
and  entertaining,  should  have  a  hearing.  Since 
we  have  adopted  Satan's  original  suggestion,  and 
eaten  of  the  Tree  of  the  Knowledge  of  Good  and 
Evil,  I  do  not  think  we  can  alter  our  food  now, 
and  get  back  to  the  ambrosia  of  Eden.  The  fact 
that,  ashamed  of  our  nakedness,  we  have  made 
ourselves  an  apron,  does  not  justify  us  in  covering 
all  our  flesh  with  old-fashioned  steel  armour.  The 
knowledge  we  have  secured,  at  the  cost  of  our 
innocence,  is  not  to  be  ignored.  The  freedom  we 
have  gained,  at  the  price  of  our  moral  peace,  is  not 
to  be  abandoned.  In  other  words,  we  cannot  save 
ourselves  now  by  ignorance,  nor  can  we  be  saved 
by  providential  suppression.  Every  man  who 
would  be  strong  for  the  world's  fight  must  visit 
Hell,  and  become  acquainted  with  its  literature  ; 
when  he  is  certain  to  discover,  if  my  own  experi- 
ence is  any  guide,  that  the  angels  there  are  real, 
though  fallen. 

Even  this  same  Zola  is  a  prophet  after  your  own 
liking,  if  you  will  only  bear  with  his  banalities. 
He  prophesies  Death  and  Doom,  if  purity  and 
self-sacrifice  do  not  arise  again  to  save  the  world. 
His  text   is   older  even   than  your  Church — *  the 

9 


130  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL, 

wages  of  Sin  is  Death.'  He  takes  us  from  death- 
bed to  death-bed  :  some  vile  and  loathsome,  like 
that  of  poor  Nana,  some  divinely  beautiful,  like 
that  of  little  Jeanne.  There  is  a  saint  and  a 
martyr  even  in  that  hotbed  of  pornography,  *  Pot 
Bouille '  ;  and  when  I  think  of  the  poor  blind 
bourgeois  father,  copying  folios  for  a  few  pence 
that  his  wife  and  daughter  may  wear  finery,  and 
then  dying  broken-hearted  when  he  finds  all  his 
life  is  founded  on  corruption,  I  weep  at  another 
Crucifixion.  To  state  this  is  merely  to  contend 
that  fine  things  may  be  found  even  in  an  Inferno : 
that  Proserpine's  flowers  did  not  all  fall  on  the 
ground  from  Dis's  waggon,  but  that  some  were 
borne  with  her  right  down  into  Hades.  Surely 
Zola  should  content  those  who  believe  in  corruption 
and  deterioration.  The  Gospel  according  to  the 
Sewers  is  your  Gospel  of  Original  Sin.  The 
scientific  dogma  of  hereditary  taint  is  your  dogma 
of  the  Fall.  True,  in  many  particulars,  your  creed 
is  the  nobler,  and  will  last  the  longer.  You  tell 
us  that  we  may  be  saved  by  Faith,  redeemed  by 
obedience  to  the  primal  Law,  and  so,  indeed,  we 
may.  But  we  shall  never  be  redeemed  by  closing 
up  all  books,  by  pretending  (in  the  face  of  our 
knowledge  to  the  contrary)  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  Sin  at  all. 

The  point  for  which  I  have  always  contended 
is  that  both  cynical  pessimism  and  coarse  realism 
are  alike  infinitely  absurd.     A  thoroughly  unclean 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  131 

book  is  almost  invariably  a  thoroughly  foolish  one.l 
Zola,  for  example,  is,  at  his  coarsest,  merely  a 
subject  for  laughter ;  the  dirt  sticks  to  him  who 
writes,  not  to  him  who  reads,  and  makes  the  writer 
look  ridiculous.  The  sense  of  the  absurd,  in  factl 
is  the  granum,  salts  which  keeps  literature  whole- 
some. Even  Justine  becomes  innocuous,  even 
Petronius  becomes  harmless,  when  so  disinfected. 
Yet  when  I  look  at  Rabelais  in  his  easy  chair, 
I  need  no  grain  of  salt,  for  I  am  thinking  only  of 
the  broad  humanity  of  the  man.  Even  Sterne's 
dirty  snigger  is  forgotten  in  his  quaint  humanities. 
Nihil  humani  a  me  alienum  puto ;  nothing  in 
literary  humanities  injures  me  one  hair.  My  eyes 
are  yonder  on  Mount  Pisgah,  and  though  I  yearn 
for  the  region  of  stainless  snow,  I  know  my  way 
lies  through  this  mud. 

In  all  these  respects,  and  in  others,  I  follow  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  There  is  only  one 
diflference  between  us,  that  while  she  fears  one 
form  of  Rationalism,  that  which  deals  with  certain 
dogmas  and  symbols  for  which  she  has  an  insane 
though  natural  affection,  I,  adding  eclecticism  to 
Catholicism,  fear  no  doctrine,  no  book,  and  no  man. 
I  shall  say  my  say  for  or  against  the  Devil,  as  any 
free  man  has  a  right  to  dp,  but  I  shall  never 
contend  that  he  has  no  existence. 

In  this  our  England,  we  have  numerous  priest- 
hoods or  deputy  Providences,  without  counting  the 
sad  and  cloistered  priesthood  of  old   Rome.      We 

9—2 


132  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

have,  for  example,  the  priesthoods  of  Episcopacy, 
of  Dissent,  of  Good  Society,  of  Art  and  Letters 
(or  Dilettantism),  of  cheap  Science,  and,  most 
potent,  yet  least  responsible  of  all,  the  Priesthood 
of  the  Press,  or  Journalism.  Now,  there  is  not 
one  of  all  these  bodies  which  is  not  thoroughly  con- 
vinced that  its  own  view  of  the  Universe  is  right, 
which  does  not,  when  occasion  offers,  persecute  and 
torture  unbelievers,  which  would  not,  if  suffered  to 
do  so,  summon  the  executioner  or  the  constable  ; 
and  if  these  same  priesthoods  were  to  be  called 
together  in  full  synod,  and  asked  to  decide  the  fate 
of  Literature,  the  general  verdict  would  possibly 
be  one  of  Strangulation  or  Castration.  The 
clergy  of  all  denominations  hate  each  other,  the 
Good  Society  people  suppress  each  other,  the 
Dilettantes  detest  all  curtain-lifters  who  are  not 
Dilettantes,  and  the  Journalists  are  the  terror  and 
the  scourge  of  every  original  thinker  under  the 
sun.  All,  however,  are  agreed  on  one  point — that, 
in  this  most  respectable  country,  there  must  be  no 
descending  into  Hell,  that  Literature  especially 
must  be  kept  clean  and  wholesome,  fit  for  family 
perusal.  Hence  we  have  been  blest  for  many 
years  with  an  expurgated  literature,  in  the  category 
of  which,  I  rejoice  to  say,  may  be  found  such 
books  as  bring  Heaven  down  to  Earth  and  glorify 
human  nature.  Let  it  be  granted,  indeed,  that  a 
book  founded  on  heavenly  intuitions,  such  a  book 
as  the  Poems  of  Tennyson,  as  the  ^Cloister  and  the 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL,  133 

Hearth  '  of  Charles  Reade,  as  the  *  Esmond '  of  1 
Thackeray,  as  the  '  David  Copperfield'  of  Dickens, 
as  the  ^  Westward  Ho  T  of  Kingsley,  as  the  ^  Lorna 
Doone '  of  Blackmore,  as  the  ^  Woodlanders '  of 
Thomas  Hardy,  as  the  ^  Greene  Feme  Farm  '  of 
Richard  Jefferies,  as  the  *  Angel  in  the  House  '  of 
Coventry  Patmore — such  a  book,  with  the  sun- 
shine and  fresh  air  upon  its  leaves — is  worth  a 
thousand  times  all  the  Devil's  documents  put 
together.  We  thank  God  for  it,  and  it  has  God's 
blessing.  But  there  are  moments  when  even  the 
best  of  us  crave  more — crave  the  bitterness  of 
knowledge,  the  sight  of  the  charnel-house,  the 
glimmer  of  the  deep,  dim  lights  of  Hell.  For,  as 
I  have  said,  Hell  is^  and  we  must  know  it,  and  to 
know  it  is,  in  the  end,  to  abominate  and  to  avoid 
it.  We  are  not  celestial  beings  yet.  We  are 
earthly  and  human  enough  to  fancy  that  the  diet 
of  celestial  beings  is  very  often  insipid.  We  want 
the  records  of  human  sin  and  pain.  We  crave  for 
the  elemental  passions.  We  tire  even  of  plum- 
pudding,  and  thirst  to  eat  husks  with  the  swine. 
We  miss  the  tasty  leaven,  in  super-celestial  food. 
And  so,  when  we  are  sick  of  a  surfeit  of  holiness, 
we  turn  to  Farquhar  for  gay  rascality,  to  Swift  for 
brute-banality,  to  Byron  for  lightsome  devilry,  to 
Goethe  for  intellectual  concupiscence,  to  Heine  for 
the  persiflage  which  scorns  all  sanctities  and  laughs 
at  all  the  gods,  and  to  Zola  for  gruesome  testimony 
against  sunlight  and  human  nature.      When  this  is 


134  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

done,  after  we  have  seen  the  Satyr  romp  and 
heard  the  hiccup  of  Silenus,  after  we  have  seen 
Rabelais  charging  the  monks  on  his  ass  Panurge, 
and  lefb  Whitman  loafing  naked  on  the  sea-shore, 
do  we  turn  again  with  less  appetite,  with  less 
eager  insight,  towards  the  shining  documents  of 
Heaven  ? 

Of  all  the  great  writers  who  have  been  canonized 
by  Humanity,  there  is  scarcely  one  who,  under  the 
proposed  Inquisition  of  Messrs.  Shallow  and 
Dogberry,  would  not  have  been  ^  run  in,'  pilloried, 
fined,  or  imprisoned.  The  author  of  'Pericles' 
would  do  his  six  months  as  a  first-class  misde- 
meanant, in  company  with  the  author  of  *  (Edipus  ' 
and  other  foreigners  of  reputation.  Sappho,  for 
one  little  set  of  verses,  would  be  tied  to  the  cart's- 
tail,  in  company  with  Nanon  and  Mrs.  Behn.  In 
one  long  chain,  the  dramatists  of  the  Elizabethan 
age  would  go  to  the  moral  galleys,  followed  by  the 
dirtier  dramatists  of  the  Restoration.  Fielding  and 
Smollett  would  find  no  mercy,  Richardson  himself 
would  only  escape  with  a  warning  not  to  ofiiend 
any  more.  To  come  down  to  contemporaries,  I 
think  Mr.  Browning  might  be  adjudged  an  offender 
against  the  law  of  modest  reticence,  and  Mr. 
George  Meredith  a  revolutionary  in  the  region  of 
sensuous  passion.  Not  all  his  odes  to  infancy,  not 
all  his  apotheosis  of  the  coral  and  the  lollipop, 
would  save  Mr.  Swinburne.  But  the  authors  of 
the  'Heir  of  Redclyffe'and*A  Knight  Errant 'would 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  135: 

rise  up  to  the  stainless  shrines  of  Hterature,  and 
Mr.  Shppery  Sweetsong  might  become  the  laureate 
of  the  new  age  of  Moral  Drapery  and  Popular 
Mauvaise  Honte.  How  good,  then,  would 
Humanity  become,  bereft  of  Shakespeare's  feudal 
glory,  denied  even  a  glimpse  of  frisky  blue 
stockings  under  the  ballet  -  skirts  of  Ouida  I 
Morality  would  be  saved,  possibly.  All  would  be 
innocence,  a  moral  constabulary,  and  good  society. 
We  should  have  choked  up  with  tracts  and  prett3r 
poems  and  proper  novelettes  the  mouth  of  a  sleep- 
ing  Volcano ;  but  when  ^tna,  or  Sheol,  or  Hell,  had 
its  periodical  eruption,  what  would  happen  then  ? 

I  shall  not  attempt  in  the  space  of  a  brief  letter 
to  penetrate  into  the  philosophy  of  this  great 
question  ;  but  it  will  occur  to  you  that  Milton's 
famous  protest  against  the  suppression  of  books- 
was  echoed  indirectly,  centuries  later,  by  Mill's, 
notable  plea  for  Liberty,  in  which  it  was  contended 
(1)  that  the  opinion  we  wish  to  suppress  may  be 
true ;  (2)  that  it  may,  at  any  rate,  contain  a 
portion  of  truth ;  (3)  that  vigorous  argument 
concerning  opinions  really  and  wholly  true  is  the 
only  way  of  saving  these  opinions  from  becoming 
conventional  and  prejudicial  to  intellectual  activity  ; 
and  (4)  that  without  such  argument,  even  good 
moral  doctrine  would  cease  to  have  any  vital  effect 
on  character  or  conduct.  I  rather  fear,  remember- 
ing a  certain  estrangement  which  resulted  from  a 
quasi-Rabelaisian  joke  of  Carlyle  at  Mill's  expense. 


136  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

that  the  author  of  the  '  Essay  on  Liberty  '  would 
have  drawn  the  Hne  of  indulgence  at  naughty 
books — just  as  Locke  did,  much  earlier.  But 
these  are  brave  words  of  Locke  :  '  It  is  only  light 
and  evidence  that  can  work  a  change  in  men  s 
opinions,  and  hght  cannot  proceed  from  corporal 
sufferings  or  any  outward  penalties  ; '  furthermore, 
*  the  power  of  the  civil  magistrate  consists  only  in 
outward  force,  while  true  and  saving  religion 
consists  in  the  inward  persuasion  of  the  mind, 
without  which  nothing  can  be  acceptable  to  God.' 
Mill's  main  contention  is  that  it  is  well  or  ill  with 
men  just  in  proportion  as  they  respect  timth.  The 
main  contention  of  suppressionist  philosophers  is 
that  if  the  majority  can  crush  out  vice  by  law,  it 
is  vicious  not  to  do  it,  even  if  a  little  truth  has  to 
be  sacrificed  too.  But  how  shall  we  decide  what 
is  vicious  ?  Shall  not  the  history  of  persecution 
warn  us  to  be  careful  how  we  judge  ?  And  in  so 
far  as  books  are  concerned,  is  not  the  record  of 
every  generation  filled  with  the  names  of  books 
labelled  vicious  by  the  contemporary  majority,  and 
afterwards  pronounced  soul-helping  by  the  verdict 
of  posterity  ?  The  suppressed  books  form  in 
themselves  a  Bible  of  Humanity.  If  it  were  only 
for  the  sake  of  one  or  two  little  chapters,  say  the 
Epistle  of  Shelley  to  the  Muggletonians  or  the 
Song  of  Songs  (not  of  Solomon,  but)  of  Heine,  I 
should  regard  that  Bible  of  Heterodoxy  with 
devout  affection. 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL,  137 

Personally,  I  claim  the  right  of  free  deliverance, 
free  speech,  free  thought,  and  what  I  claim  for 
myself  I  claim  for  every  human  being.  I  claim 
the  right  to  attack  and  to  defend.  I  claim  the 
right  to  justify  the  Devil,  if  I  want  to.  I  can  be 
suppressed  by  wiser  argument,  by  deeper  insight, 
by  greater  knowledge,  but  not  by  the  magistrate, 
civil  or  literary.  I  would  stand  even  by  Judas 
Iscariot  in  the  dock,  if  his  Judge  denied  him  a  free 
hearing,  a  fair  trial.  The  Truth,  if  she  is  great  as 
we  assume  her  to  be,  must  prevail.  The  evidence 
of  the  Devil  is  necessary  to  secure  the  triumph  of 
God;  if  it  were  otherwise,  the  Devil,  not  his  Judge, 
would  be  Omnipotent.  And  the  evidence  which 
proves  vice  and  proves  virtue  must  be  from  within^ 
from  the  Spirit  which  you  cannot  cast  into  prison, 
but  which  chooses  not  unfrequently  to  chain  and 
shackle  itself.  Meantime,  it  is  Mr.  Coote  and  the 
Vigilance  Committee,  not  Mr.  Vizetelly,  who  lie 
in  ignoble  chains.  We  want  more  light,  not  more 
Darkness;  more  knowledge,  not  more  ignorance; 
not  more  government,  but  more  freedom  of  speech 
— more  production  of  documents,  more  verifica- 
tion. Let  your  Church,  Right  Hon.  Sir,  turn 
round  upon  herself  and  say  this,  and  we  shall 
witness  the  last  miraculous  conversion.  Hd'p  her 
to  say  it.  Justify  literature,  justify  free  thought, 
by  releasing  Mr.  Vizetelly  from  a  bondage  which 
its  an  insult  to  literature.  You  have  only  to  lift 
your  hand.     You  have  only  to  say,   *  God  is,  and 


138  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

He  fears  nothing,  good  or  evil,  that  He  has  created/ 
This  would  be  the  last  and  crowning  proof  of  one 
mans  wisdom;  of  the  Church's  infallibility,  which 
is  insight ;  of  her  function,  which  is  the  reconcilia- 
tion and  interpenetration  of  good  and  evil  ;  and  of 
her  prerogative,  which  is  the  right  of  Spiritual 
Judgment  independent  of  the  dim  and  doubtful 
lights  of  the  Civil  Law.  The  police  magistrate 
cannot  save  us  from  Evil,  which  is  in  ourselves, 
but,  even  now.  Religion  can. 

In  this  country,  I  believe,  only  two  classes  are 
specially  pornographic  :  those  who  never  read  at 
all,  because  they  cannot  or  will  not,  and  those  who 
are  sufficiently  wealthy  to  buy  and  read  editions  de 
luxe.  Mr.  Vizetelly's  publications  cannot  affect  the 
former  classes,  and  their  existence  is  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  the  latter,  who  finger  their  Casanova 
at  leisure,  and  pay  readily  for  costly  works  like 
Burton  s  translation  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  The 
point  of  the  persecution,  therefore,  appears  to  be 
that  Mr.  Vizetelly's  books  are  sufficiently  attractive 
and  cheap  to  reach  those  classes  who  are  porno- 
graphic in  neither  their  habits  nor  their  tastes — 
young  clerks,  frisky  milliners,  et  hoc  genus  omne. 
Now,  these  people  are  precisely  those  who  are 
robust  and  healthy-minded  enough,  familiar  with 
the  world  enough,  to  discriminate  for  themselves. 
Whatever  they  choose  to  read  will  make  them 
neither  better  nor  worse.  The  milliner  will  frisk 
without  the  aid  of  a  Zola,  and  the  young  clerk  will 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  139 

follow  the  milliner,  even  within  the  protective  shadow 
of  a  Young  Men's  Christian  Association.  Wholesale 
corruption  never  yet  came  from  corrupt  literature  ; 
which  is  the  effect,  not  the  cause,  of  social  libertin- 
age.  Do  we  find  morality  so  plentiful  amongst 
the  godly  farmers  and  drovers  of  Annandale,  or 
among  the  *  unco'  gude '  of  Ayrshire  or  Dumfries- 
shire— thumbers  of  the  Bible,  sheep  of  the  Kirk  ? 
Stands  Scotland  anywhere  but  where  it  did,  though 
it  has  not  yet  acquired  an  aesthetic  taste  for  the 
Abominable,  but  merely  realizes  occasionally  the 
primitive  instincts  of  La  Terre  ?  Dwells  perfect 
purity  in  Brittany  and  in  Normandy,  despite  the 
fact  that  Zola  there  is  an  unknown  quantity,  and 
Paris  itself  a  thing  of  dream  ?  Bestialism,  animal- 
ism, sensualism,  realism,  call  it  by  what  name  you 
will,  is  antecedent  to  and  triumphant  over  all 
books  whatsoever.  Books  may  reflect  it,  that  ik 
all ;  and  I  fail  to  see  why  they  should  not,  since  it 
exists.  I  love  my  Burns  and  like  my  Byron, 
though  neither  was  a  virtuous  or  even  a  '  decent ' 
person.  My  Juvenal,  my  Lucretius,  my  Catullus, 
and  even  my  porcus  porcorum  Petronius,  are  well 
read.  My  *  Decameron,'  with  all  its  incidence  of 
amativeness,  is  a  breeding  nest  of  poets.  Age 
cannot  wither,  nor  custom  stale.  La  Fontaine's 
infinite  variety.  But  I  take  such  books  as  these 
as  I  take  all  such  mental  food,  cum  grano  salis,  a 
pinch  of  which  keeps  each  from  corruption.  Even 
the  fly-blown  Gautier  looks  well,  cold  and  inedible, 


I40  ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL. 

on  a  sideboard,  garnished  with  Style's  fresh  parsley. 
But  I  have  never  found  that  what  my  teeth  nibble 
at  has  any  power  to  pollute  my  immortal  part.  I 
must  stand  on  the  earth,  with  Montaigne  and 
Rabelais,  but  does  that  prevent  me  from  flying 
heavenward  with  Jean  Paul,  or  walking  the  moun- 
tain tops  with  the  Shepherd  of  Rydal  ?  Inspec- 
tion of  the  dung-heaps  and  slaughter-houses  with 
Jonathan  Swift  and  Zola  only  makes  me  more 
anxious  to  get  away,  with  Rousseau,  to  the  peace- 
fill  height  where  the  Savoyard  Vicar  prays  !  By 
Evil  only  shall  ye  distinguish  Good,  says  the 
Master ;  yea,  and  by  the  husks  shall  ye  know  the 
grain. 

The  man  who  says  that  a  Book  has  power  to 
pollute  his  Soul  ranks  his  Soul  below  a  Book.  I 
rank  mine  infinitely  higher. 

Robert  Buchanan. 

Note. — Since  the  above  letter  was  written  I 
have  heard  that  Messrs.  Vizetelly  have  '  sup- 
pressed' their  translation  of  Murger  s  '  Vie  de 
Boheme,'  a  book  as  good  and  wholesome,  to  my 
mind,  as  life  itself;  and  that  Messrs.  Chatto  and 
Windus  have  burned  their  '  stocks'  of  Rabelais 
and  Boccaccio.  0  tempora !  0  mores !  0  scBclum 
insipiens  et  injicetum !  What  next  ? — and  next  ? 
and  next  ?  O  yes,  the  seizure  of  the  pictures 
painted  to  illustrate  the  merry  Vicar  of  Meudon, 
and  the   unfettered  circulation,    in   every  journal. 


ON  DESCENDING  INTO  HELL.  141 

of  the  last  dirty  details  of  the  Divorce  Court. 
And  simultaneously  comes  the  legislation  which 
would  confine  the  ragged  street-child  to  the 
slums,  and  denies  it  one  glimpse  of  happiness  in 
the  wicked  Theatre  !  Only  those  who  really  know 
the  facts,  who  have  been  familiar  with  the  blessing 
a  single  Drury  Lane  Pantomime  used  to  bring 
to  a  thousand  homes,  can  understand  the  cruelty 
and  futility  of  this  last  example  of  providential 
legislation. 

R  B. 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 


k 


THE     MODEKN    YOUNG     MAN     AS 
CRITIC. 

Frankly,    I     do    not    know    what    the     Modern 
Young  Man  is  coming  to  !       The  young  man  of 
my  own  early  experience  was  feather-headed,  but 
earnest  ;     impulsive    and  .  uninstructed,    but    sym- 
pathetic  and    occasionally    studious  ;    though    his 
faults  were  many,  lack  of  conviction  was  certainly 
not  one  of  them.      He  dreamed  wildly  of  fame,  of 
fair  women,  of  beautiful  books  ;  and  when  he  read 
the  Masters,  he  despaired.     A  great  thought,  even 
a  fine  phrase,  stirred  him  like  a  trumpet.     For  him^ 
in  his  calm  and  waking    moments,    female  purity  \ 
was    still    a   sacred    certainty,   and    female  shame 
and  suffering  were  less  a  proof  of  woman's  baseness  1 
and  unworthiness  than  one  of  man's  deterioration.  \ 
He  lifted  his  hat  to  the  Magdalen,  in  life  and  in    \ 
literature.      The  human  form,  even  when  wrapt  in  ^ 
the  robes  of  the  street-walker,  was  still  sacred  to 
him;  and  he  would  as  soon  have  thought  of  laying 
sacrilegious  hands  upon  it  as  of  vivisecting  his  own 
mother.      In  Bohemia  he  had  heard  the  bird-like 

10 


146     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

cry  of  Mimi  ;  in  the  forest  of  Arden  he  had 
roamed  with  RosaHnd.  For  him,  in  the  light- 
heartedness  of  his  youth,  the  world  was  an  en- 
chanted dweUing-place.  The  gods  remained,  with 
God  above  them.  The  Heaven  of  his  Hterary 
infancy  lay  around  him.  Out  in  the  darkened 
streets  he  met  the  sunny  smile  of  Dickens,  and 
down  among  the  English  lanes  he  listened  to  the 
nightingales  of  Keats  and  Tennyson.  But  now^ 
with  the  passing  of  one  brief  generation,  the  world 
has  changed  ;  the  youth  who  was  a  poet  and  a 
dreamer  has  departed,  and  the  modern  young  man 
has  arisen  to  take  his  place.  A  saturnine  young 
man,  a  young  man  who  has  never  dreamed  a  dream 
or  been  a  child,  a  young  man  whose  days  have  been 
shadowed  by  the  upas-tree  of  modern  pessimism, 
and  who  is  born  to  the  heritage  of  flash  cynicism 
and  cheap  science,  of  literature  which  is  less  litera- 
ture than  criticism  run  to  seed.  Though  varied  in 
the  genus,  he  is  invariable  in  the  type,  which 
includes  the  whole  range  of  modern  character, 
from  the  young  man  of  culture  expressed  in  the 
elegant  humanities  of  Mr.  Henry  James  and  Mr. 
Marion  Crawford,  down  to  the  bank-holiday  young 
man  of  no  culture,  of  whom  the  handiest  example 
is  (as  we  shall  see)  a  certain  egregious  Mr.  George 
Moore.  The  modern  young  man,  whether  with  or 
without  education,  has  no  religion  and  no  enthu- 
siasm. Nourished  in  the  new  creed  of  Realism 
and  '  Art  for  Art,'  he  is  ready,  with  De  Goncourt 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.      147 

and  Zola,  to  '  throw  a  woman  on  the  dissecting- 
table,'  and  cut  the  beautiful  dead  form  to  pieces, 
and  content,  with  Paul  Bourget  (ridicidus  onus  of 
social  mud-heap  in  parturition),  to  take  Love  *  as 
subject,'  and  call  it  a  cruel  enigma.  Even  th 
insufferable  Gautier  was  superior  to  all  this  ;  h 
was  not  too  clever  to  live,  not  over-fiiU  of  insight 
to  write.  But  the  modern  young  man  is  the  very 
paradox  of  prescience  and  nescience,  of  instruction 
and  incapacity.  He  writes  books  which  are  dead 
books  from  the  birth  ;  he  formulates  criticisms, 
which  are  laborious  self-dissections,  indecent  ex- 
posures of  the  infinitely  trivial ;  he  paints,  he 
composes,  he  toils  and  moils,  and  all  to  no  avail. 
For  the  faith  which  is  life,  and  the  life  which  is 
reverence  and  enthusiasm,  have  been  denied  to 
him.  The  sun  has  gone  out  above  him,  and  the 
earth  is  arid  dust  beneath  him.  He  has  scarcely 
heard  of  Bohemia,  he  is  utterly  incredulous  of 
Arden,  and  he  is  aware  with  all  his  eyes,  not  of 
Mimi  or  of  Rosalind,  but  of  Sidonie  Risler  and 
Emma  Bovary.  He  has  looked  down  Vesuvius, 
out  of  his  very  cradle.  In  Boston  he  has  measured/ 
Shakespeare  and  Dickens,  and  found  the  giantsj 
wanting  ;  in  France  he  has  talked  the  argot  01 
LAssommoir  over  the  grave  of  Hugo ;  even  in 
free  Scandinavia  he  has  discovered  a  Zola  with  a 
stuttering  style  and  two  wooden  legs,  and  made 
a  fetish  of  Ibsen;  while  here  in  England  he 
threatens    Turner  the  painter,  and   has  practically 

10—2 


yv^  HIS 


148      TIfE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

(as  he  thinks)  demoHshed  the  gospel  of  poetical 
sentiment.  And  yet,  curiously  enough,  he  has 
done  nothing,  he  has  given  us  nothing  ;  for  he  is 
nothing.  He  is  appearing  before  us,  however,  in 
so  many  forms  of  pertinacious  triviality,  that  it 
behoves  us  to  take  a  passing  glance  at  him,  and 
to  inquire,  however  briefly,  into  the  phenomenon 
of  his  existence.  To  study  that  phenomenon  com- 
pletely would  far  transcend  the  Hmits  of  a  brief 
article  ;  so  I  must  confine  myself  at  present  to  the 
consideration  of  the  young  man  in  one  capacity 
only,  that  of  Critic,  though  he  is  nothing  indeed  if 
not  critical,  as  we  shall  see.  From  the  day  when 
Goethe  sent  forth  his  '  plague  of  microscopes '  to 
the  day  when  Matthew  Arnold  defined  poetry 
itself  as  a  *  criticism  of  life'  (committing  poetical 
suicide  in  that  preposterous  definition),  everybody 
has  been  critical,  and  of  course  our  young  man  is 
no  exception  to  the  rule.  Of  the  Modern  Young 
Man  as  Critic,  then,  I  propose  to  furnish  some  few 
easily  selected  illustrations,  subdividing  my  types 
as  follows  :  ( 1 )  The  Young  Man  who  is  Superfine ; 
the  Detrimental  Young  Man  ;  (3)  the  Olfac- 
tory Young  Man  ;  (4)  the  Young  Man  in  a  Cheap 
Literary  Suit ;  and  (5)  the  Bank-Holiday  Young 
Man — the  last  pretty  much  the  same  as  discovered 
in  real  life  and  classified  by  Mr.  Gilbert.  All 
these  young  men  have  drifted  into  literature,  and, 
though  there  is  an  immeasurable  distance  between 
the  distinction  and  culture  of  type  number  one  and 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     149 

the  unkempt  barbarity  of  type  number  five,  they     ( 
have    all   certain   characteristics    in   common — an    / 
easy  air  of  omniscience  in  dealing  with  the  great 
problems  of  Life  and  Thought,  an  assumption  of  , 
complete  familiarity  with  the    '  facts  '  of  existence  ' 
(they  are  all,  in  a  word,  wonderfully    *  knowing'), 
an  open  or  secret  disrespect  for  average  ideals,  a   I 
constitutional    hatred    of    '  conventional   morality,' 
an  equally  constitutional   hatred   of  *  imagination,' 
and,  above  all,  a  general  air  of  never  having  been 
really  young,  of  never  having  loved  or  worshipped, 
or  been  mastered  by,  anything  or  anybody,  on  the 
earth  or  above  it. 

Taking  the  types  in  their  intellectual  and  natural 
order,  for  I  propose  to  work  down  the  scale  from 
the  highest  note  to  the  lowest,  I  can  find  no  better 
example  of  the  Superfine  Young  Man  than  Mr. 
Henry  James,  well  known  as  the  author  of  several 
minor    novels     and     numerous    minor    criticisms.  ,.^ 

Highly  finished,  perfectly  machined,  icily  regular,  'J       * 
thoroughly  representative,  Mr.  James  is  the  edu-  /  ^^  i^ 
cated  young  or  youngish  American  whom  we  have      ^^v^ 
all    met  in  society;  the  well-dressed    person  who 
knows   everybody,  who  has  read  everything,   who 
has  been  everywhere,  who  is  nebulously  conscious 
of  every  astral  and  mundane  influence,  but  who,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  is  most  at  home  on  the  Boule- 
vards,  and  whose    religion    includes    as    its    chief 
article    the    well-known    humorous    formula — that 
good  Americans,  w^hen  they  die,  go  to  Paris.      No 


I50     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

one  can  dispute  Mr.  James's  cleverness  ;  he  is  very 
clever.  He  is,  moreover,  well-spoken,  agreeable, 
good-tempered,  tolerant.  He  can  even,  upon  occa- 
sion, affect  and  seem  to  feel  enthusiasm — can  talk 
of  Tourgenieff  as  'lovable,'  of  Daudet  as  '  adorable.' 
For  the  first  quarter  of  an  hour  of  our  conversa- 
tion with  him  we  are  largely  impressed  with  his 
variety,  his  catholicity;  after  that  comes  a  certain 
indescribable  sense  of  vagueness,  of  superficiality, 
of  indiflferentism;  finally,  if  we  must  give  the  thing 
a  name,  a  forlorn  feeling  of  vacuity,  of  silliness. 
With  a  sigh  we  discover  it ;  this  young  man,  with 
all  his  information,  with  all  his  variety  and  catho- 
licity, with  all  his  wonderful  knowledge  of  things 
caviare  to  the  general,  is,  an  fond,  a  fatuous  young 
man.  Startled  at  first  by  our  discovery,  we  turn 
away  from  him  ;  then,  returning  to  him,  under  dis- 
hallucination,  we  perceive  that  he  does  not  really 
know  so  much,  even  superficially,  as  we  imagined  ; 
that  his  easy  air  of  omniscience  is  a  mere  cloak  to 
cover  complete  intellectual  indetermination.  For 
him  and  his,  great  literature  has  really  no  exist- 
ence. He  is  secretly  indifferent  about  all  the  gods, 
dead  and  living.  He  takes  us  into  his  confidence, 
welcomes  us  into  his  study,  and  we  find  that  the 
faces  on  the  walls  are  those,  not  of  a  Pantheon,  but 
of  the  comic  newspaper  and  the  circulating  library. 
He  appears  to  recognise  the  modern  Sibyl  in 
George  Eliot;  and  why,  indeed,  should  he  not  take 
that  triumphant  Talent  seriously,  when  the  inspira- 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     15  r 


tion  of  his  childhood  was  the  picture-gallery  in 
Punch,  when  he  sees  a  profound  social  satirist  in 
Mr.  du  Maurier,  and  when  he  can  fall  prone  before 
the  masterpieces  of  that  hard-bound  genius  in  posse 
Mr.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  ?  These,  then,  art 
the  glorious  discoveries  of  the  young  man's  omni- 
science— George  Eliot,  Alphonse  Daudet,  Flaubert.\ 
Du  Maurier,  Mr.  Punch,  and  the  author  of  '  Trea- 
sure Island.'  With  these,  one  is  bound  to  say,  he 
is,  like  all  well-bred  Americans,  thoroughly  at  home. 
He  says  charming  things  concerning  them.  He 
finds  more  than  one  of  them  (adopting  that  hideous 
French  phrase)  '  adorable.'  He  becomes  the  little 
prophet  of  the  little  masters,  and  he  publishes  a 
little  book"^  about  them — a  book  full  of  the  agree- 
able art  of  conversation,  such  as  we  listen  to  in  a 
hundred  drawing-rooms.  Nor  is  it  at  all  out  of 
keeping  with  this  elegant  young  man's  character 
that  his  talk  about  his  literary  ideals  is,  when  it 
is  most  admiring,  most  patronizing.  He  keeps  in 
reserve  a  latent  scepticism  even  concerning  the  dii 
minores  of  his  microscopic  religion  ;  nay,  he  sug- 
gests to  us  that  his  remarks  concerning  them  are 
merely  lightly  thrown-out  illustrations  of  his  own 
superabundant  sympathy — that,  if  you  really  put 
him  to  it,  he  might  read  Shakespeare  with  appre- 
ciation, and  could  share  the  boy's  enthusiasm  about 
Byron. 

Very   characteristic   of  Mr.    James   is   his   neat 
*  *  Partial  Portraits,'  by  Henry  James. 


152      THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

little  paper  on  Alphonse  Daudet — a  quite  mar- 
vellous example  of  '  how  not  to  commit  one's  self  in 
criticism/  how  to  burn  incense  with  one  hand  and 
snap  the  fingers  of  the  other.  He  begins  by 
saying  that  '  a  new  novel  by  this  admirable  genius 
is  to  my  mind  the  most  delightful  literary  event 
that  can  occur  just  now  ;'  he  ends  by  *  retracting 
some  of  the  admiration '  he  has  ^  expressed  for  him,' 
and  saying  that  he  has  ^  no  high  imagination,  and, 
as  a  consequence,  no  ideas  ;'  and  finally,  as  an 
afterthought,  to  conciliate  his  Famulus  Mr.  Facing- 
both-ways,  he  cries,  '  And  then  he  is  so  free  !'  and 
*  The  sight  of  such  freedom  is  delightful.'  This 
inconsistency,  it  will  be  admitted,  is  rather  hard  on 
an  author  of  whom  Mr.  James  also  remarks  :  *  If 
we  were  talking  French,  nothing  would  be  simpler 
than  to  say  that  Alphonse  Daudet  is  adorable, 
and  have  done  with  it.'  The  ^  admirable  genius,' 
a  book  from  whose  pen  is  ^  the  most  delightful 
literary  event  that  can  occur,'  who  is  so  ^  free,'  and 
whose  delight  and  freedom  consists  in  '■  having  no 
imagination,  no  ideas,'  must  be  a  little  puzzled  by 
such  treatment ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  only  the 
superfine  young  man's  way  of  telling  us  that  he  is 
really  so  omniscient  as  to  have  no  clear  opinion  at 
all  on  that  or  any  subject.  In  one  of  the  best 
things  in  the  book,  a  conversation  about  '  Daniel 
Deronda,'  in  which  the  interlocutors  are  a  literary 
gentleman  and  two  talkative  ladies,  he  is  seen  at 
his  best  or   worst — now   panting   with  admiration 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.      153 

for  George  Eliot's  genius,  again  inferring  that  she 
had  no  genius  at  all,  trimming,  finessing,  explaining, 
blaming,  excusing,  till  the  poor  puzzled  reader  ex- 
claims in  despair,  '  Oh  this  Superfine  Young  Man  ! 
What  does  he  mean  ?     What  does  he  feel  ?     Why 
does  he  not  speak  out   his   mind,  and   have  done 
with    it  V       This,    however,    is    not    Mr.    James's 
method.      His   desire    is    to    convince    us    at    any 
expense  that  he  sees  every  side  of  a  question,  is 
familiar  with   every  nuance  of  a  subject ;  and   in 
the  eagerness  of  this  desire  he  is  paralyzed  out  of 
all  conviction.      His   perceptive  faculties  are  good 
enough,  naturally  ;  his  temper  is  highly  agreeable 
and    his    style    affable    in     the    extreme ;  but    his 
courage    is    as   non-existent   as    his   opinions.      So 
clever  yet  so  half-hearted  a  gentleman  never  yet 
committed  himself  to  criticism.      Not  less  amazing 
than  the  fact  that  he  should  consider  a  drawing- 
room  discussion  on  '  Daniel  Deronda  '  really  worth 
recording,  is  the  fact  that  he  should  labour  under 
the  impression  that  he  has  really  pronounced  any 
dictum  on  any  subject.      One  can  understand  the\ 
critics  who  have  opinions,    wise   or   unwise.      One 
can  follow  with  amusement  the  subacid   sneers  of 
Hazlitt,    the    florid    flourishes    of    Macaulay,    the 
sledge-hammer    blows    of   Carlyle,    the    screaming 
invective  of  Mr.  Ruskin,  because  all  these  writers 
have  something  to  say  and  contrive  to  say  it ;  but 
when  we  enter  the  salon  and  encounter  the  super- 
fine young  man,  who  is  neither  bitter,  nor  florid. 


154      THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

nor  brutal,  nor  shrewish,  but  is  in  all  respects 
perfectly  well-behaved,  we  are  not  amused  or 
edified — we  are  bored.  It  matters  little  whether 
he  is  pattering  to  us  about  George  Eliot,  or  about 
'  his  friend '  Tourgenieff,  or  about  Alphonse 
Daudet,  or  about  the  caricatures  in  Punch,  or 
about  the  Art  of  Fiction — the  effect  is  invariably 
the  same.  No  sooner  is  one  opinion  advanced 
than  it  is  qualified  with  another  ;  scarcely  is  one 
view  taken  when  another  is  substituted  ;  an 
endless  succession  of  personal  pronouns  —  ^  / 
think,'  '/will  admit,'  '/consider,'  '/suspect,'  etc., 
covers  a  total  absence  of  critical  personality.  The 
young  man's  very  religion  is  '  qualified.'  His  mind 
is  bewildered  by  its  dreadful  catholicity.  He  has 
not  a  spark  of  hate  in  him,  because  (with  all  his 
admirations  and  '  adorations ')  he  has  not  a  spark 
of  love.  As  was  said  long  ago  in  another 
connection,  '  How  sad  and  perplexing  it  must  be  to 
be  so  clever  !' 

One  regrets  not  a  little  that  the  final  impression 
left  by  a  young  man  of  such  cultivation  should  be 
one  of  dulness,  of  silliness  ;  yet  so  it  is,  and  it  is 
only  another  proof  that  education  is  sometimes  a 
very  misleading  thing.  I  can  quite  imagine  that 
Mr.  Henry  James,  had  he  read  less,  travelled  less, 
known  less,  might  have  become  a  highly  interest- 
ing writer  ;  but  early  in  his  career  he  appears  to 
have  quitted  America  for  Europe,  and  to  have  left 
the  possibilities  of  his  grand  nativity  behind  him. 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.      155 


To  be  born  an  American  is  surely  a  great  privilege  ; 
yet  nearly  all  Americans  of  talent  flit  moth-like 
towards  the  garish  lights  of  London  or  Paris,  and 
hover  round  these  lights  in  wanton,  not  to  say 
imbecile,  gyrations,  till  they  pop  into  the  glare, 
drop  down  singed  and  wingless,  and  are  forgotten. 
No  individual  is  so  catholic  as  an  averao^e  American 
of  culture  ;  no  individual  is,  an  fond,  so  worldly, 
so  supremely  trivial ;  and  Mr.  Henry  James  is  this 
average  American  in  excelsis.  A  good  deal  of  this 
is,  of  course,  matter  of  temperament  ;  a  good  deal 
more,  matter  of  training.  Youngish  men  like  Mr. 
James  have  refined  their  perceptions  to  so  thin  a 
point  that  they  are  only  fit  to  commemorate  the 
judgments  of  the  drawing-room  on  the  one  hand 
and  the  smoking-room  on  the  other.  The  air  of 
free  literature  asphyxiates  and  paralyzes  them. 
Outside  of  society  and  Paris,  they  are  far  too 
clever,  far  too  educated,  to  breathe  or  live  at  all. 

It  is  Mr.  James's  privilege,  or  perhaps  his 
misfortune,  to  write  for  the  English  public  ;  but  I 
strongly  suspect  him  of  a  hidden  longing  to  cater 
for  the  public  which  is  Continental.  If  he  were 
not  doomed  by  his  nationality  to  be  a  superfine 
young  man,  he  would  perhaps  choose  to  become  a 
Detrimental  one,  like  his  friend  M.  Paul  Bourget, 
who  dedicates  a  book  to  him  and  claims  at  least 
two-thirds  of  him  as  thoroughly  Parisian.  The 
Detrimental  Young  Man/to  whom  I  now  come  by  . 
a  very  natural  transition,  \is  quite  as  pertinacious   *    ^ 


r;^ 


156      THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

as  Mr.  James,  though  far  less  cautious  ;  fully  as 
omniscient,  but  not  nearly  so  self-assured  ;  far  more 
audacious,  but  in  reality  quite  as  dull.  He  is  a 
refined  or  superfined  sort  of  naturalist,  to  whom 
the  coarse  method  of  Zola  appears  very  shocking, 
and  who,  before  he  *  dissects  '  the  human  subject, 
is  careful  to  wash  his  hands ;  nay,  he  goes 
further,  and  washes  his  subject  too,  that  the 
spectator  may  be  spared  disgust  and  pain  as  far  as 
possible.  An  elegant  young  man,  with  a  certain 
amount  of  surgical  skill,  he  affects  to  have  studied 
profoundly  the  morbid  anatomy  of  the  female 
character  ;  but,  alas  1  we  soon  discover  that  his 
elegance  is  merely  that  of  a  man  about  town,  while 
his  science  is  only  a  device  to  hide  the  tastes  of 
the  houlevardier.  Two  or  three  feeble  novels,  and 
a  few  flabby  criticisms,  form  his  literary  credentials; 
so  that  he  would  be  scarcely  worth  considering  if 
he  were  not  the  type  of  a  very  numerous  class. 
Like  his  fellows,  he  parades  a  '  method ';  like  his 
superiors,  he  vaunts  the  dogma  of  LArt  pour  L'Art, 
which,  in  other  words,  is  Art  without  the  aspirate, 
without  any  heart  at  all.  The  world  is  beginning 
to  discover,  by  the  way,  that  the  moment  a  writer 
begins  to  talk  about  his  Art  he  is  forfeiting  its 
privileges.  It  is  quite  true,  moreover,  that  Art 
has  nothing  to  do  with  Morality,  directly  ;  but  it 
/  iias  a  great  deal  to  do  with  it  indirectly  ;  for  (as  I 
attempted  to  show  years  ago)  if  a  work  of  Art  is 
beautiful,  it  must  be  moral.      This,  of  course,  is  not 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     157 

saying  that  it  may  not  offend  against  conventional 
canons.  But  all  the  palaver  about  Art  /^  such 
writers  as  Flaubert  was  merely  a  feint  to  disguise 
a  radical  defect  in  sympathy,  an  incapacity  for 
imagining  greatly  and  feeling  either  deeply  or 
profoundly  ;  and  it  will  be  found  generally  that 
the  writers  who  echo  the  palaver  are,  like 
Flaubert,  workers  in  mosaic — artists  who,  instead 
of  working  under  special  inspiration  or  with  inspir- 
ing passion,  take  little  bits  of  subject  and  piece 
them  together,  sometimes  with  very  charming 
effect,  but  never  with  the  genius  of  great  literature. 
The  talk  of  Art  for  Art  is,  in  short,  disingenuous, 
being  used  almost  invariably  to  excuse  or  to  justify 
trivialities  of  invention  and  temperamental  want  of 
creative  insight. 

What  kind  of  a  person  the  Detrimental  Young 
Man  is  may  be  gathered  from  a  reference  to  one  of 
his  well-known  stories,  '  Un  Crime  d'Amour,'^  a 
work  so  far  critical  that  it  seems  to  embody  the 
writer's  theory  of  social  life.  It  is  the  very 
commonplace  history  of  a  houlevardiers  love  for 
his  friend's  wife,  his  seduction  of  her,  and  the 
consequent  misery  and  dishallucination.  In  the 
opening  chapter  we  are  introduced  to  the  only 
three  dramatis  personce — the  husband,  the  wife, 
and  the  lover.  '  Le  petit  salon  ^tait  eclair^  d'une 
lumiere  douce  par  les  trois  lampes — de  hautes 
lampes  posees  dans  les  vases  de  Japon,  et  garnies 
*  By  Paul  Bourget. 


158     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

de  globes  sur  lesquels  s'appliquaient  des  abat-jour 
^  T]    simples  de  nuSince^Jbleu-pale.'     This  'nuance  bleu 


^  pale  '  is  the   only  thing  which  differentiates  '  Un 


r 


y^  Crime  d' Amour  from  other  idylls  of  adultery,  and 
Y^^^4he  only  quality  which  distinguishes  M.  Paul 
Bourget's  '  method '  from  that  of  other  foolish 
young  men.  It  permeates  the  story  and  the  style, 
it  sicklies  o'er  the  countenances  of  the  adulterers 
and  the  author,  it  is  used  in  lieu  of  honest  daylight 
to  give  artistic  seeming  to  a  theme  which  is 
radically  prurient  yet  absurd.  In  one  consummate 
chapter  we  are  treated  bo  a  detailed  description  of 
the  furnished  house  which  Armand,  the  lover, 
takes  for  his  mistress,  and  in  which,  dazzled  by  the 
'  nuance  bleu  pale,'  '  elle  venait  de  sentir,  sous  les 
caresses  de  cet  homme  qu'elle  aimait  si  profonde- 
ment,  une  emotion  inconnue  s'eveiller  en  elle.' 
Then  the  same  '  nuance'  travels  on  to  the  husband, 
who  in  course  of  time,  poor  fellow  !  gets  very  blue 
indeed ;  rests  on  the  wretched  woman,  who  de- 
ceives her  lover  as  well  as  her  husband  and  then 
cries,  in  articulo  mortis^  'C'est  cette  soufFrance  qui 
m'a  sauvee,  c'est  par  elle  que  j'ai  juge  ma  vie  ;'  and 
finally  transfigures  the  Detrimental  Young  Man 
himself,  while  he  informs  us  that  '  une  chose  venait 
de  naitre  en  lui,  avec  laquelle  il  pourrait  toujours 
trouver  des  raisons  de  vivre  et  d'agir  :  la  religion 
de  la  souffrance  humaine.'  This  is  the  moral,  that  r 
experiences  of  the  sort  I  have  described  Qiake  even 
a  detrimental   young    man  alive  to  the  fact  that 

\ 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.      159 

treachery  and  seduction  turn  life  into  Dead  Sea 
fruit  and  lead  married  ladies  into  much  trouble. 
We  have  heard  it  a  thousand  times  before,  we  shall 
hear  it  a  thousand  times  again  ;  for  our  modern 
young  men  are  honest  enough  to  admit  that  Love 
is  not  a  thing  of  csLkes-^Tnd-^ale.  No ;  it  is  the  pre- 
rogative, it  is  the  glory,  of  the  Detrimental  Young 
Man  to  pose  himself  in  the  pale  blue  ^  nuance'  of  a 
picturesque  unhappiness.  In  his  sad  perception  of 
the  sorrows  of  crim.  con}  and  the  dreariness  of  in- 
fidelity, he  resembles  our  own  glorious  Ouida  ;  and 
he  resembles  that  classic  of  the  Langham  in  other 
respects — in  a  feverish  appreciation  of  millinery 
and  upholstery,  in  a  love  of  subdued  lights  and 
soft  odours,  in  a  rapturous  inspiration  to  paint  the 
splendours  of  the  bedpost  and  the  mysteries  of  the 
bath-room.  Indeed,  if  we  could  imagine  Zola  and 
Ouida  collaborating  on  a  story  to  be  afterwards 
revised  by  Mr.  Henry  James,  we  should  get  a  very 
good  idea  of  a  work  by  M.  Paul  Bourget.  We 
should  have  all  the  nastiness  'plus  all  the  niceness, 
and  the  whole  carefully  supervised  by  a  master  of 
the  superfine. 

In  another  novel,  '  Cruelle  Enigme, '  the 
Detrimental  Young  Man  goes  further,  and  for  the 
edification  of  his  friend  Mr.  James,  to  whom  the 
work  is  dedicated,  '  throws  a  woman  on  the  dis- 
secting table,'  and  vivisects  her,  arriving,  after 
much  more  millinery,  at  the  conclusion  that  Love, 
like  life,   is    '  a  cruel   enigma.'     The   poor  woman 


i6o      THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

deceives  everybody,  even  the  very  young  lover 
whom  she  adores,  and  is,  in  fact,  just  the  famihar 
tame-tigress  of  French  fiction ;  but  she  is  speciahzed 
again  for  us  by  the  pale-blue  'nuance,'  producing 
in  this  case  an  anatomical  study  much  in  the 
manner  of  the  eccentric  artist  Van  Beers.  All 
this  might  be  very  interesting,  no  doubt,  if  there 
were  any  Science  in  it.  Readers  who  know  what 
Balzac  has  done  in  this  way  would  certainly  not 
deny  the  attraction  to  be  found  in  the  morbid 
pathology  of  the  female  character.  But  Balzac 
was  a  man,  not  a  houlevardier ;  and  even  Zola 
is  a  Man  deformed.  One  page  of  the  '  Human 
Comedy,'  or  one  chapter  of  *  La  Joie  de  Yivre,'  is 
worth  all  that  M.  Paul  Bourget  or  Mr.  Henry 
James  ever  wrote  or  dreamed  of  writing.  And  if 
I  return  without  apology  to  our  Superfine  Young 
Man  in  this  connection,  it  is  not  that  I  am  un- 
aware of  the  ethical  distinction  between  him  and 
the  Detrimental  Young  Man.  But  there  is  an 
ethical  resemblance  also,  though  it  does  not  lie 
upon  the  surface.  It  is  the  business — it  may, 
for  all  I  know,  be  the  boast  and  pride — of  Mr. 
James  and  his  compeers  to  translate  the  fiction 
of  the  French  Empire  and  Republic  into  a  voca- 
bulary suitable  for  the  perusal  of  young  American 
ladies  ;  and  young  ladies,  in  England  and  America, 
read  their  dreary  books — compared  w^ith  which 
the  literature  of  the  '  Lamplighter'  and  the  '  Old 
Helmet'  is  edifying.      To  call  them  immoral  would 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.      i6i 

be  exaggeration;  they  are  not  vital  enough  to  be 
immoral.  But  they,  too,  parade  the  pale-blue 
*  nuance'  which  is  to  redeem  insipidity  and  im- 
pertinence, and  turn  commonplace  into  Art.  In 
their  cold-blooded  self-sufficiency,  in  their  in- 
domitable triviality,  in  their  stupendous  dulness 
and  omniscient  vacuity,  they  suggest  Zola  (a  dul- 
lard an  fond)  under  ruthless  expurgation  and 
Gautier  without  the  flesh.  For,  the  modern 
French  theory  of  writing  being  that  nothing  is 
too  trivial  for  a  subject  so  long  as  it  gives  oppor- 
tunity for  narrative  and  analysis,  French  novelists 
escape  dulness  by  choosing  subjects  which,  though 
trivial,  are  suggestive  or  unclean ;  and  our  Art 
for  Art  novelists  of  English  race  choose,  in  secret 
emulation,  subjects  which,  though  trivial  almost  to 
fatuity,  are  prurient  in  their  supreme  affectation  of 
moral  catholicity. 

But  let  me  put  it  in  plainer  words,  in  clearer 
English.  There  is  neither  flesh  and  blood,  nor 
virility,  nor  manly  vigour,  in  these  young  moderns, 
either  in  France  or  England  ;  they  breathe  no 
oxygen  ;  they  display  no  intellectual  or  moral 
health.  They  hang  about  the  petticoats  of  young 
women,  in  the  *  nuance  bleu  pale'  of  a  moral 
atmosphere  of  their  own  making.  Contrast  a  book 
like  '  Un  Crime  d' Amour '  with  a  book  like 
Murger  s  *  Vie  de  Boheme,'  and  note  the  difference 
between  two  generations.  Compare  the  *  Sappho ' 
of  1887  with  even  the  ^  Dame  aux  Camelias '  of 

11 


i62     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

1850.  To  go  even  a  little  further  back,  the  jaded 
young  man  of  Alfred  de  Musset  still  preserved  his 
hallucinations.  Rolla  saw  his  ideal  naked,  not  on 
the  dissecting-table,  but  alive — 

'  Et  pendant  un  moment,  tous  deux  avaient  aimes  !' 

He  was   not   a  nice    young  man,   with  his  shirt- 
collar  turned  down  a  la  Byron,  and  his  addiction  to 
absinthe  ;  but,  compared  with  this  modern  young 
man,  he  was  a  gentleman,  a  poet,  and  a  dreamer. 
And  then,  if  you  will,  compare  such  books  as  ^  The 
Portrait  of  a  Lady '  with  the  early  girl-studies  of 
Trollope,  a  novelist  ever  thin  and  trivial  enough,  in 
all  conscience.      The7'e  was  the  fresh  flush  of  English 
life,  the  breath  of  English  homes  ;  here  we  get  only 
the  simper  of  the  superior  person,  the  drawl  of  the 
superfine  young  miss  etherealized  into  a  heaven  of 
small   sensations,   small   intuitions,   and    small,   in- 
finitesimally  small,  conversation.      It  is  nothing  to 
the  purpose  to  explain  that  Mr.  Henry  James  is  a 
strictly  moral  writer  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word,    and    that   M.    Paul    Bourget    is    a    highly 
immoral  one.      My  own  impression  is  that  the  two 
gentlemen  are  more  nearly  akin,  both  in  mind  and 
morals,  than  either  would  care  to  admit.     Though 
one   is   superfine,    while  the  other  is  detrimental, 
both  are  omnisciently  silly  ;  neither  has  one  spark 
of  the  vitality,  one  flash  of  the  insight,  which  made 
young  men  write  books  a  generation  ago. 

Whose  children  are  these  ?     Who  is  responsible 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.      163 

for  the  appearance  of  these  young  men  in  society 
and  hterature  ?      I  think  their  literary  genealogy, 
though  here  and  there  obscure,  may  be  traced  with 
quasi-Biblical     accuracy     on     both     sides     of    the 
Channel.      Tliere,  our  own  Byron  begot  Alfred  de 
Musset,  and  Alfred  de  Musset  begot  Dumas  JiU, 
and  Dumas  Jils  begot  Daudet,  and  Daudet  begot 
Paul    Bourget.        Here,    Richardson    begot    Jane 
Austen,    and    Jane    Austen    became    the    mother 
of   Theodore    Hook,    and    Theodore    Hook    begot 
Anthony    TroUope,   and   Anthony   Trollope    begot 
Henry   James.       In    either    succession   there    was 
a  gradual  process  of  deterioration,  resulting  at  last 
in  what   physiologists   call  *  an  exhausted  breed  ;' 
nor  is   the    present   threatened   intermarriage   be- 
tween Parisian  impertinence  and  English  triviality 
likely  to  improve  the  stock.      Meantime,  the  great 
masters,  Balzac  and  Hugo,  Fielding  and  Dickens, 
apjjear  to  have  left  no  lawful  descendants.      Look 
back   again   at  the   Paris   and  the    London    of  a 
generation  ago  !      How  fresh  and  living,  how  full 
of   wild    enthusiasm    and    delightful    temper,    was 
literature  !      Here    and    yonder,   the    breeze    blew 
lightly  from  Bohemia.      Art  was  sunny,  life  was 
free.       The     young     Frenchmen     swaggered     like 
Fluellen,    forcing    all    and    ready    to    honour    the 
green  leek  of  Romanticism.      The  young  Cockneys  / 
swarmed  everywhere,  full  of  the    new   gospel    ofi 
Dickens    and    a     robustious     Fairyland.       Young 
writers    were    neither    cynical,    nor    cautious,    nor\ 

11 — 2 


n 
1 


164     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

*  knowing  ' ;  they  were  mad  with  the  exuberance  of 

their  vitality.      Since  the  old  boys  were  childishly 

reverent   and   happy,  why   should  not   the   young 

boys  be  so  too  ?      In  those  days  there  was  little  or 

no  thought  of  '  dissecting '  women,  only  of  loving 

and  honouring  and  embracing  them  ;    no   care  to 

hang  round  the  skirts  of  young  ladies,  analyzing 

their    intuitions,  but   rather   a  desire   to   roam  in 

Arden  with  them,  or  to  join  them  at  ^  Roger  de 

Cover  ley.'     There  were  girls  then,  as  there  were 

boys.      Alas,  there  are  now  neither  girls  nor  boys, 

only  nasty  little  men  and  women  !     I  rather  fancy 

that  the  easy  descent  of  Avernus  was  begun  when 

Thackeray  drew  Blanche  Amory  and  Becky  Sharp, 

\  and  painted  his  good  women  without  brains  ;  for 

though  Thackeray  had  been  in  Bohemia,  and  never 

quite  forgot  the  soft  sylvan  susurrus  of  its  green 

glades,  he   created  a  school  of  young  cynics  who 

have  something  in  common  with  the  young  realists 

of  to-day.      Be  that  as  it  may,  the  time  of  cheap 

pessimism  has  come,  and   good  cheer  and  animal 

spirits,  poetry  and  enthusiasm,  have  now  no  abiding 

place  in  literature. 

Next  on  my  list  comes  the  Olfactory  Young 
Man,  whom  I  shall  deal  with  very  briefly,  as  he 
differs  from  the  Detrimental  Young  Man  only  in 
a  few  minor  particulars,  and,  like  him,  is  French  by 
nationality.  M.  Guy  de  Maupassant,  in  his  intro- 
duction to  Flaubert's  '  Correspondence  with  George 
Sand,'  entreats  us  not  to  get  angry  with  any  one 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     165 

artistic  theory,  'since  every  theory  is  the  generalized 
expression  of  a    temperament    asking  itself   ques- 
tions ;'  in  other  words,  he  contends  that  it  is  the 
business    of    the    artist,    not    to     ascertain    truth 
absolute,    but    to     describe    the     effect    of    social 
phenomena  on  his  own  organs,  his  own  tempera- 
ment.     This  being  admitted,  he  contends,  taking 
his  own  point  of  perception,  the  only  point  of  view 
possible    to    his    temperament,   that   it    is  a   very 
ugly  and  a  very  nasty  world.      His  sense  of  un-i 
pleasant  odours  in  life  leads  to  the  most  grievous! 
of  all  afflictions,  Naresniia.     He  goes  through  life    j 
and  literature  following  his  unlucky  nose.      All  the 
meaner  phenomena  of  life,  all  its  baseness,  all  it^ 
triviality,    allure    and    fascinate    him,    while  he   is' 
blind,    and   glories   in   being    blind,   to    its    subtle  \ 
suggestions,  its  higher  meanings.      A  critic  and  a 
novelist,    he    parades  his   little  gospel   of  realism, 
and  declines  to   subject  either   his  thought  or  his 
style  to  any   disturbing  influence.      But,  after  all, 
the  main  thing  in  life  of  which  he  is  conscious  is 
the  sexual  instinct,  and   the   sexual  instinct  on  its 
most    physical    side.       His    lovers    find    out    each  \ 
other,  like  animals,  by  the  sense  of  smell.      From   \ 
the  scent  of  a  rose  to  the  perfume  of  a  petticoat, 
life    is   conditioned   by  its   olfactory   peculiarities  ; 
beneath  and  within  it  all  is  the  odour  of  decaying 
moral  vegetation,  the  stench,  faint  or  overpowering, 
of  the  human  dead  body,  of  the  tomb.      I  suppose 
M.  de  Maupassant  is   an   artist ;  he  is   careful  to 


1 66     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

tell  US  that  he  is.  For  my  own  part,  I  am 
content,  with  only  this  stray  reference,  to  pass  him 
by.  A  young  gentleman  who  threatens  to  become, 
like  the  famous  Slawkenbergius  of  Sterne,  '  all 
nose,'  would  be  very  useful  company  for  a  sanitary 
inspector  or  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Works,  but, 
fortunately,  literature  is  much  more  than  osmology, 
and  Humanity  contains  something  beyond  and 
above  its  epidermis. 

It  is  a  relief,  after  discovering  such  subtleties 
of  refinement,  literary  and  olfactory,  to  come  face 
\  to  face  with  the  good,  square,  honest,  unintelli- 
\gence  of  the  Young  Man  in  a  Cheap  Literary 
yfeuit.  Mr.  James,  M.  Bourget,  and  M.  de  Mau- 
passant are  models  of  literary  elegance,  and  would 
look  aghast  on  the  loud,  showy,  every-day  dress 
of  tweed  which  forms  the  literary  attire  of  Mr. 
William  Archer,  a  young  gentleman  from  Scotland 
who  has  attained  to  the  proud  dignity  of  being 
dramatic  critic  of  the  World;  a  saturnine  and 
severe  young  gentleman,  a  young  gentleman  who 
has  taken  the  Drama  under  his  protection,  and 
writes  in  all  seriousness  about  plays  and  players."^ 
I  have  on  a  former  occasion,  in  a  very  rough 
ad  cajptandum  fashion,  described  Mr.  Archer's 
literary  gifts.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  not  to  be  over- 
looked in  the  present  survey,  that  while  the  critics 
of  twenty  years  ago  were  recruited  from  the  ranks 
of  literary  aspirants,  with  special  gifts  and  ambitions 
*  '  About  the  Theatre,'  by  William  Archer. 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     167 

of  their  own  in  other  directions,  and  while  such 
critics  were  young  men  of  enthusiastic  tempera- 
ment and  with  minds  nourished  on  free  hterature, 
the  most  boisterous  critics  of  the  present  moment 
are  recruited  from  the  ranks  of  the  uninspired  and 
unaspiring,  are,  in  other  words,  young  men  who 
seem  never  to  have  studied  seriously  or  felt  pro- 
foundly any  literature  at  all.  A  little  knowledge, 
a  very  little  English,  and  much  pertinacity,  are 
at  any  rate  Mr.  Archer's  equipment,  enabling  him 
to  pronounce  judgment  on  works  of  art,  to  talk 
glibly  about  the  drama  and  its  professors,  and  to 
deliver  a  lecture  on  his  favourite  subjects  at  the 
Royal  Institution.  The  pet  object  of  Mr.  Archer's 
aversion  is  Mr.  Irving.  Our  young  man  began  his 
career  by  an  attack  on  that  gentleman,  consisting 
chiefly  of  '  Bank-holiday  '  personalities.  He  quali- 
fied this  attack  a  little  later  on  by  a  pamphlet  on 
*  Mr.  Irving  as  Actor  and  Manager,'  while  his 
friend  and  quondam  collaborateur,  Mr.  Low,  laid 
at  the  popular  idol's  feet  the  dedication  of  a  volu- 
minous work  on  the  drama.  Still,  Mr.  Archer  has 
nothing  but  scorn,  open  or  disguised,  for  Mr.  Irving 
as  an  actor,  and  for  the  *  poetical '  productions  of 
the  Lyceum.  Ranging  further  afield,  he  inveighs 
against  the  ^  fanfaronade '  of  Victor  Hugo,  and 
finds  his  best  dramas  '  about  on  the  level  of  Italian 
Opera  ;'  while  in  Zola  and  Flaubert  he  discovers 
the  kind  of  beauty  which  enables  him  to  exclaim  : 
'  This  is  true  !  this  is  real !'      The  public,  it  seems 


1 68     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

to  Mr.  Archer,  '  is  beginning  to  demand  more  and 

more  imperatively  that  the  dramatist  shall  be,  not 

^      1  indeed  a  moralist  (that  may  come  later   on  /),  but 

ti^  W  an  observer,  and  shall  give  us   in   his   work,  not  a 

^^'*^\  judgment  or  an  ideal ^  but  2^  painting ;    and  on  this 

^py.r^'^;  [score,  and  on   the   score  that  he  finds   indications 

among    dramatists    of    increased     observation,    he 

thinks  that  the  drama  is  ^  advancing.' 

Mr.  Archer,  in  fact,  is  nothing  if  not  '  critical '; 
that  is  to  say,  his  cheap  literary  suit  is  worn  by 
him  as  armour  against  all  the  shafts  of  imagination. 
He  pines  for  a  drama  where  there  shall  be  no 
^  ideals,'  and  which  shall  be  an  absolute  and  accu- 
rate *  transcription  of  life,'  and  he  sees  hope  for  it, 
finds  hints  of  it,  when  he  contemplates  suqh 
splendid  experiments  as  Mr.  Pinero's  '  Lords  and 
Commons,'  Mr.  Grundy's  '  Snowball,'  and  the 
'  Great  Pink  Pearl.'  '  Poetical  and  imaginative 
plays  he  finds,  on  the  whole,  dull  and  uninteresting  ; 
not  nearly  '  knowing '  enough,  or  severe  enough, 
for  this  generation  ;  and  in  his  gloomy  expectation 
of  the  hour  when  the  dramatist  shall  be  a 
*  moralist '  (which  is  '  to  come,'  mirahile  dictu !) 
he  turns  with  all  the  eagerness  of  which  he  is 
capable  to  the  latest  dramatist  of  Scandinavia — to 
Ibsen,  who  is  '  stumping '  the  North  of  Europe 
in  the  interests  of  so-called  Scientific  Realism. 

Shrewd,  clever,  fearless,  individual  if  not 
original,  Ibsen  has  produced  certain  pamphlets 
which  he  calls  plays,  and  in  each  one  of  which  he 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     169 

advances  one  of  those  dreary  ethical  propositions 
which  the  world  is  now  receiving  ad  nauseam, 
K.'  quite  loathsome  piece  of  morbid  pathology 
called  '  Gengangere '  is  considered  his  masterpiece. 
It  is  a  story  of  heredity,  showing  with  what  has 
been  called  '  relentless  fidelity  '  how  the  sins  of  the 
parents  are  visited  on  the  children — a  thesis 
chiefly  illustrated  by  two  characters,  a  miserable  . 
and  depraved  young  man  who  inherits  insani^ity"^ 
from  a  dissipated  father,  and  a  perkish  young 
woman  who  takes  her  foibles  from  a  mother  who 
*  went  wrong/  As  a  realistic  experiment  this  play 
is  not  uninteresting  ;  as  a  work  of  art,  it  is  on  the 
intellectual  level  of  De  Goncourt  ;  for  it  means 
nothing  and  is  nothing,  except  a  disagreeable 
reminder  of  facts  with  which  every  thinking  man 
is  familiar.  A  poet  might  have  taken  the  subject, 
and  stirred  us  by  it.  A  dramatist  would  have 
made  it  live  and  move.  Ibsen,  after  disgusting 
and  horrifying  us  beyond  measure,  leaves  the 
subject  exactly  where  he  found  it — in  the  region 
of  dreary  and  dirty  commonplace.  And  as  this 
arid  writer  deals  with  the  subject  of  Heredity,  so 
does  he  deal  with  Sociology,  with  Morality,  with 
Religion,  placing  a  smudgy  finger  on  the  black 
marks  which  disfigure  the  map  of  life,  but  seldom 
if  ever  assisting  us  with  any  flash  of  poetic  vision. 
Unfortunately  for  literature,  his  audacity  in 
attracting  the  modern  young  man  has  infected 
a   far  nobler    writer  of   his    own    nationality,   the 


lyo     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

Bjornson  who  imagined  what  is  perhaps  the 
divinest  love-episode  in  any  language,  that  of 
Audhild  in  '  Sigurd  Slembe.'  Of  late  years 
Bjornson  has  been  drifting  towards  the  shifting 
sands  of  realism,  attracted  thither  by  the  false 
lights  set  by  Ibsen  e,t  hoc  genus  omne.  But  not 
in  that  direction,  not  in  the  way  of  cheap  science 
and  hideous  human  pathology,  lies  the  freedom  of 
art  or  the  salvation  of  literature.  When  the  prose 
of  truth  has  been  said,  its  poetry  remains  to  be 
told  ;  and  when  the  great  writer  comes  to  deal 
with  such  themes  as  physical  disease  and  moral 
responsibility,  he  will  show  us  how  impossible, 
how  hopeless,  how  heartbreaking  it  is,  to  view 
these  themes  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  pessi- 
mist or  of  the  Modern  Young  Man  as  Critic. 
Fortunately,  Shakespeare  and  fresh  air  remain, 
while  the  artistic  progeny  of  Schopenhauer 
asphyxiate  themselves  in  close  chambers  and  try 
experiments  on  the  dead  or  living  subject. 

If  Ibsen  is  a  great  or  even  a  good  writer,  as 
Mr.  Archer  and  his  friends  assure  us  that  he  is, 
then  the  great  writers  of  all  countries  have  been 
from  time  immemorial  hopelessly  in  the  wrong — 
then  we  must  accept  M.  Zola's  dictum  that  the 
true  method  of  literature  is  only  just  discovered. 
In  that  case,  to  be  a  great  writer  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  be  stupendously  and  supremely  unimagina- 
tive, and  to  see  nothing  beyond  the  bit  of  tissue 
at  the  point  of  the   scalpel.      But   ^schylus  and 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     171 

Sophocles,   Shakespeare  and  Fielding,   Balzac  and 
Victor  Hugo  (to  go  no  further  for  examples)  have 
warned  us  that  literature  can  glorify  Science  while 
embracing    it.       Take    a    work    of   any    of   those 
masters,  no  matter  how  gross  or  how  revolting  the 
subject — choose  the   '  Agamemnon  '  or  the  ^  Anti- 
gone,'   '  Macbeth  '    or    *  Lear,'     '  Tom    Jones '    or 
'  Joseph  Andrews,'  '  Pere  Goriot '  or  the  story  of 
Fantine — and     what     impression     remains  ?      The    j 
terror,  the  sadness,  the  pity,  or  (as  it  may  be)  the   / 
mad  absurdity   of   life,   but   above   all,   its    divine  / 
suggestions.      What  holds  true  of  the  masterpieces  J 
holds  true  of  all  literature  which  is  sound  and  hale  ; 
such   literature   explains  by  insight  what  is  dark 
and  horrible,  redeems  by  insight  what  is  base  and 
mean,  and  instead  of  leaving  the  wound  of  a  moral 
sore  wide  open  to  horrify  Humanity,  heals  it  with 
the  balm  of  a  subtle  interpretation.      It  is  because  \ 
Zola  justifies   himself  thus  occasionally,  that  even 
he,  w^th  all  his  banalities,  is  worth  considering. 

But,  naturally,  the  Young  Man  in  a  cheap 
Literary  Suit,  sunk  in  the  self-satisfaction  of  being 
completely  though  inexpensively  rigged  out,  and 
consequently  overpowering,  resents  imagination. 
Great  is  the  truth,  he  says,  and  it  shall  prevail ; 
but  there  is  truth  and  truth,  and  what  satisfies 
the  needs  of  a  small  critic  is  wormwood  to  the  soul 
of  a  thinker  or  a  poet.  A  little  culture  is  a 
dangerous  thing  ;  for  it  encourages  a  dull  young 
man  of  saturnine  proclivities  to  decry  the  masters, 


172     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

to  extol  the  dullards,  and  to  pose  as  a  superior 
person.  Writers  like  Mr.  Archer  assert  that 
Art  may  go  wrong  through  too  much  sentiment, 
too  much  imagination,  and  that  photography  has 
been  sent  to  put  it  right.  Yet  the  outcome  of  the 
teaching  of  all  great  literature  is  that,  while 
Realism  is  the  device  of  blind  men  and  feeble 
intellects.  Poetry,  not  Pessimism  and  Cynicism,  is 
the  living  Truth. 

It  would  be  vain  to  follow  our  present  young 
man  through  all  the  perversions  caused  by  a  hasty 
literary  equipment  and  a  morbid  intellectual 
appetite.  As  the  absinthe-drinker,  rapidly  losing 
the  sense  of  taste,  finds  that  only  acrid  wormwood 
will  suit  his  palate,  so  Mr.  Archer  takes  his  Ibsen 
with  a  relish,  and  even  thanks  the  gods  for  Mr. 
W.  S.  Gilbert.  While  he  has  not  one  good  word 
for  a  Titan  like  Mr.  Charles  Reade,  he  waxes 
almost  eloquent  when  his  theme  is  a  small  cynic 
or  a  huge  dullard.  Great  sentiments,  great 
motives,  great  emotions,  great  conceptions,  great 
language,  alike  repel  him.  By  temperament  and 
by  education,  he  is,  like  his  superiors  with  whom 
I  have  placed  him  in  juxtaposition,  wholly  un- 
imaginative and  unsympathetic. 

One  word,  before  I  proceed,  on  a  point  sug- 
gested by  the  growth  in  art  of  that  diabolic  love 
of  the  Horrible  which  is  to  be  found  among  the 
class  of  realists  so  much  admired  by  Mr.  Archer 
and  his  friends.      To  those  who  imagine,  as  I  do, 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     173 

that  the   world   has   been   growing   too   cruel  and 
cynical  to  exist  in  any  sort  of  moral  comfort,  there 
is  more  than  mere  social  significance  in  the  occm*- 
rence  of  such  hideous  catastrophes  as  Whitechapel 
murders  and  other  epidemics  of  murder  and  mutila- 
tion ;     for    they    show    at    least    that     our    social 
philosophy  of  nescience  has  reached   a   cataclysm, 
and  that  the  world,  in   its   despair,  may  be  driven 
back  at  last  to  some  saner  and  diviner  creed.      The 
lurid  and   ever- vanishing  apparition  known  in  the 
newspapers  as  *  Jack  the  Ripper  '  is  to  our  lower 
social   life  what   Schopenhauer    is    to   philosophy, 
what  Zola  and  his  tribe  are  to  literature,  and  what 
Van  Beers  is  to  art :  the  diabolic   adumbration  of 
a   disease   which  is   slowly   but   surely   destroying, 
moral  sentiment,  and  threatening  to  corrupt  human  I 
nature  altogether.      ^  Jack  the  Ripper,'  indeed,  is  a 
factor  to  be  reckoned  with  everywhere  nowadays, 
and  it  behoves  us,  therefore,  to  study  him  carefully. 
To  begin  with,  he  is  an  instructed,  not  a  merely 
ignorant,  person.      He  is  acquainted  with  at  least 
the  superficialities  of  Science.      His  contempt  for 
human  nature,   his  delight  in  the  abominable,  his 
calm   and   calculating    though   savage    cruelty,    his 
selection   of  his   victims  from  among   the  socially 
helpless  and  morally  corrupt,  his  devilish  ingenuity, 
his  supernatural  pitilessness,  are  all  indications  by 
which  we   may  know   him  as   typical,  whether  in 
literature  or  in  the  slums,  in  Art  or  among  the 
lanes  of  Whitechapel.      Most  characteristic  of  all 


174     THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

is  his  irreverence  for  the  human  form  divine,  and 
his  cynical  contempt  for  the  weaker  sex.  As  the 
unknown  murderer  of  the  East-End,  he  desecrates 
and  mutilates  his  poor  street- walking  victims.  As 
Zola  or  De  Goncourt,  he  seizes  a  living  woman, 
and  vivisects  her  nerve  by  nerve,  for  our  instruction 
or  our  amusement.  To  him  and  to  his  class  there 
are  no  sanctities,  physical  or  moral  or  social ;  no 
mysteries,  human  or  superhuman.  He  believes 
that  life  is  cankered  through  and  through.  And 
as  he  is,  let  it  be  clearly  understood,  so  is  the 
typical,  the  average,  pessimist  of  the  present 
moment.  Everywhere  in  society  we  are  con 
fronted  with  the  instructed  person  for  whom  there 
are  no  gods,  no  holy  of  holies,  no  purity,  and,  above 
all,  no  spiritual  ideals.  Contemporaneous  with 
modern  pessimism  has  arisen  the  cruel  disdain  of 
Woman,  the  disbelief  in  that  divine  Eivigweihliche, 
or  Eternal  Feminine,  which  of  old  created  heroes, 
lovers,  and  believers  ;  and  this  disdain  and  unbelief, 
this  cruel  and  brutal  scorn,  descends  with  the 
violence  of  horror  on  the  unfortunate  and  the 
feeble,  on  the  class  called  '  fallen,'  which  in  nobler 
times  supplied  to  Humanity,  to  Literature,  and  to 
Art,  the  piteous  type  of  the  Magdalen.  To  under- 
stand the  revolution  in  human  sentiment  which  has 
taken  place  even  within  the  generation,  contrast 
poor  Mimi  once  more  with  even  Madame  Bovary  ! 
With  the  decay  of  masculine  faith  and  chivalry, 
with  the  belief  that  women  are  essentially  corrupt 


7'HE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     175 

and  fit  subjects  for  mere  vivisection,  has  come  a 
corresponding  decline  in  the  feminine  character 
itself;  for  just  as  pure  and  beautiful  women  made 
men  chivalrous  and  noble,  so  did  the  chivalry  and 
nobility  of  men  keep  women  safe,  in  the  prerogative 
of  their  beauty  and  their  purity. 

For  myself,  who  write  as  a  pure  optimist  and 
sentimentalist,  and  still  preserve  the  illusions  of  my 
foolish  youth,  I  see  in  the  change  around  me  only 
a  lurid  and  hideous  nightmare.  It  cannot  be  real, 
it  cannot  be  the  living  waking  truth,  for  if  so.  Life 
is  a  lazar-house  and  a  slaughter-house,  and  there  is 
nothing  left  but  Despair  and  Death.  I  know  (am  T 
not  told  so  on  every  hand  ?)  that  this  is  mere 
'  sentiment.'  I  know  that  to  believe  in  the  Mag- 
dalen is  almost  as  retrograde  as  to  believe  in  the 
Christ.  I  am  referred,  for  my  guidance,  to  a 
whole  literature  dealing  with  the  morbid  pathology 
of  the  female  character,  and  am  left  free  to  consult 
my  Thackeray  of  the  drawing-rooms  or  my  Zola  of 
the  sewers.  Neither  Becky  Sharp  nor  Blanche 
Amory,  however,  any  more  than  Madame  Bovary 
or  the  wife  of  the  painter  Claude,  has  any  power 
to  interest  me,  any  skill  to  convert  me.  My  own 
experience,  though  poor  and  uneventful,  has  shown 
me  that  womankind  is  not  entirely  composed  of 
silken  monsters  and  ferocious  tigress-cats.  I  have 
with  my  own  ears  heard  the  cry  of  the  Magdalen 
just  as  certainly  as  I  have  listened  to  the  bird-like 
laugh  of  Mimi  and  have  stood   by  the  bedside  of 


176      THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 


4---^ 

t- 


Camille.      I   am   aware,   in  a   word,   that  what   is 
known  as  the  ^  sentimental '  view  of  evil  is  corrobo- 
3:ated  by  my  own  knowledge  of  the  world  and  of 
human  nature.      Pessimism  is  a  lie  ;  that  basest  of 
i.-lies  which  is  half  a  truth,  it  attracts,  by  its  special 
"Y^^      pleadings,    its    triumphant    reference     to     hideous 
J^Via^^Jip  the  half-instructed  among  human    beings. 
^^y^  It  IS  a  creed  for  the  semi-cultivated,  for  the  men 
y^f\j^    of  some  knowledge  and  little   understanding,  and 
-^^J,^'   (  from  the' bulk  of  these  issue  our  ^  Jack  the  Rippers  ' 
-in  Life,  in  Literature,  in  Art,  and  in  Criticism. 
I  have  now  arrived  at   the  bottom  rung  of  the 
,_.^-'  ladder,  where  Mr.  George  Moore,  the  last  young 
man  on  my  list,  is  waiting  for  me,  ready,  nay  deter- 
mined, to  throw  off  the  mask  and   let  us  see  the 
f^       Modern   Young  Man  as   Critic  exactly  as   he   is. 
It  is  doubtless  a  far   cry  from   Mr.  Henry  James 
to  Mr.  Moore  ;  but  though  the  one  is  a  barbarous 
and  the  other  a   superfine   young   man,  they  have 
certain  typical   qualities   in   common,    as   we  shall 
discover.       In   a  recently  published  masterpiece, "^ 
Mr.  Moore  paints  his   own   portrait  for  a  faithless 
generation.      His  book  goes  straight  to  the  mark. 
Its  vanity,   its  ignorance,  its   courage,    is   colossal. 
Its  self-exposure  amounts  to  the  sublime. 

I    for    one    am    very    glad    that,    after    all  the 

lamentable  want  of  candour  characteristic  of  our 

Harrys  with  the  *  H,'  thf^  world  is  treated  at  last 

to  a  complete  revelation  of  the   type    which  has 

*  '  A  Young  Man's  Cunfessions,'  by  George  Moore. 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.     177 

discarded  its    *  H '   for  ever.      The  typical  young- 
man  of  this  generation,  the  '  Arry  of  the  casinos  and 
the  music-halls,  has  broken  out  in  Criticism.      A 
problem  well  worth  studying  is  this  young  man  of 
boisterous  indecency,  with  his  incidental  acquaint- 
ance with  the  argot  of  Paris  and  the  studios,  and 
his  general   incapacity  for   consecutive   thought  of 
any  kind — this  young  man  who,  like  those  others, 
has   never  been  young,  and  will   never,  we  know, 
be  old  or  wise.     I  have  read  his  book  with  no  little 
pleasure,  for  it  is,  at   any  rate,  thoroughly  candid 
and  representative.      The  high  jinks  of  the  excur- 
sion   train    developed    into     criticism     in     which 
everybody  is   '  bonneted,'  even  poor  Shakespeare, 
the     wild    revel     of    the     penny    steamboat,     the 
Bacchantic    romps     of    Hampstead     Heath,     are 
expressed  at  last  in  a  malodorous  but  honest  work.  ( 
The  Belshazzar's  Feast  of  small  beer  and  skittles, 
the   Bohemianism   of  bad  tobacco,   the   exuberant 
Cockney  horseplay,  all  is  here  ;  and,   to  crown  all, 
we  have  the  portrait  of  the   young   man,  not  the 
'Arry  of  the  revels,  but  the  penitent  'Arry  of  next 
day,  after  the   trying  excursion    to  Gravesend   or 
Hampton  Court,  exclaiming  to  himself,  '  Oh,  I  do 
feel  so  bad  !'     The  doleful  'Any  countenance,  the 
'Arry   coat,   the   'Arry  tie,  are   all  typical  of  the 
young  man  who  has  never  had  a  clean  mind,  who 
glories  in  his  uninstruction,  yet  who  is  so  far  from 
happy  !     A  noticeable   experience   in  his   life  has 
been  a  holiday  trip  beyond  the  Thames,  to  Paris. 

12 


lyS      THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

He  has  seen  the  photographs  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli, 
and  visited  the  Eden  Theatre.  He  talks  com- 
placently of  his  experiences  and  his  predilections — 
of  the  great  Balzac,  of  '  his  friend  '  Zola  (whom  he 
bonnets,  too,  quite  merrily),  of  girls,  of  artists,  of 
pictures,  of  books,  of  a  general  ramble  and  scramble 
through  cafes  and  bagnios,  always  ending  in  the 
same  Elysium  of  unsavoury  jokes  and  pipes  and 
beer. 

This  young  man  was  never  a  child,  never  had 
/any  eyes  to  see  what  ordinary  people  see.  His 
earliest  remembrance  is  of  a  miracle — '  plover 
rising  from  the  water  ' — so  that  even  as  a  child  he 
y^as  incapable  of  observing  correctly  the  simi3lest 
0^/^'^)^  -natural  phenomena.  In  later  life,  his  reading  has 
^^  ^  embraced,  among  other  works,  a  book  called  *  The 
^ip^  Rise  and  Fall  of  Rationalism,'  doubtless  some 
5  (  prophetic  history,  which  in  his  Wegg-like  way  he 

mingles  up  with  a  certain  '  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire.'  If  he  has  studied  any  books,  he 
is  completely  fogged  as  to  what  books.  He  knows 
literature  as  he  knows  Nature,  out  of  his  own  con- 
fused, ill-balanced  head.  He  hates  everything — 
Shakespeare,  Art,  Poetry,  Religion,  Decency  — 
everything  but  pipes  and  beer.  When  he  goes  to 
the  theatre  and  sees  Mr.  Wilson  Barrett  as  Claudian, 
he  beholds  '  an  elderly  man  in  a  low-necked  dress, 
posturing  for  the  aj^plause  of  some  poor  trull  in 
the  gallery.'  He  brands  Mr.  Irving  scornfully  as 
a  *  mummer,'  and  describes  all  actors  and  actresses 


n 

r.,^ 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.      179 

as  idiotic  marionettes.  His  dream  is  that  the  tongue 
of  the  music-hall  shall  be  loosened,  and  that  we 
shall  then  have  a  New  Drama,  free,  unfettered, 
primitive  ;  meanwhile  he  is  careful  to  tell  us  that 
'  Whoa,  Emma  !'  '  Charley  Dilke,'  and  other 
ballads  of  the  music-hall,  are  of  far  deeper  artistic 
value  than  any  more  sober  productions  of  the 
modern  stage.  For  novelists  and  poets  he  has  as 
profound  a  contempt  as  for  '  mummers ';  the  only 
English  writer  he  professes  to  admire  being  Mr. 
Walter  Pater,  whose  jejune  essays  he  assumes  to 
have  read  with  rapture.  For  himself,  he  frankly 
informs  us  that  he  is  immoral  and  indecent,  and 
asserts  that  those  who  pretend  to  be  otherwise  are 
simply  ^  hypocritical.' 

Now,  all  this,  horrible  as  it  may  sound,  is  better 
than  '  trimming ' — better,  to  my  mind,  than  the 
superfluities  of  Mr.  James  or  the  literary  pretences 
of  Mr.  Archer.  The  young  man  really  respects 
nothing  under  the  sun,  and  is  honest  enough  to  say 
so.  His  more  ornate  brethren  respect  and  love 
quite  as  little,  but,  unlike  him,  have  not  the 
courage  of  their  emotions.  They  accept  themselves 
dismally,  as  omniscient  spectators  of  the  human 
comedy ;  he  accepts  himself  savagely,  as  a  Cockney 
Bohemian  of  the  Latin  Quarter.  But  Mr.  Moore 
is  frank  and  fearless,  while  they  are  merely  polite 
or  saturnine.  He  goes  on  his  trip  to  Paris,  and 
thinks  he  is  ^seeing  life.'  Truth,  Reality,  Naturalism 
is  his  cry,  as  it  is  theirs  ;  but  while  they  keep  to 

12 — 2 


i8o      THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

the  pavement,  he  dances  in  the  mud,  reels  along 
mud-bespattered,  talks  and  yells,  and  thinks,  (Jest 
TYiagniJique,  et  cest  la  vie !  There  is  no  nonsense 
about  him — he  does  not  pretend  to  be  virtuous  or 
literary — virtue  particularly  is  all  'gammon';  every- 
thing is  gammon,  except  indecency,  except  horse- 
play, except  the  jolly  Bank  Holiday  and  all  its 
concomitant  delights.  The  superfine  and  the 
saturnine  young  men  secretly  detest  the  proprieties 
of  life  and  literature.  He  utters  his  detestation, 
and  boldly  pictures  to  us  the  literary  future  :  'Arry 
triumphant,  the  tongue  loosened,  the  morals  and 
manners  free  and  easy,  the  old  gods  of  letters  set  up 
for  cockshies,  the  music-hall  turned  into  a  Temple 
of  all  the  arts,  and  'Arriett,  alma  Venus  of  Seven 
Dials,  hominum  divumque  voluptas,  at  her  apotheosis. 
Well,  all  this  is  infinitely  refreshing,  after  so  much 
disingenuous  respectability.  The  age  of  Sham  is 
over,  and  the  new  prophet  of  straightforward 
animalism  is  Mr.  George  Moore.  We  are  at  last 
returning  to  Nature,  vid  Rosherville  Gardens  and 
the  Alexandra  Palace.  The  Young  Man  as  Critic 
triumphs,  after  all.  He  is  found  everywhere,  in 
varied  forms  :  with  Mr.  James,  writing  little  novels, 
studying  the  little  masters  ;  with  Messrs.  Bourget 
and  De  Maupassant,  studiously  detrimental  and 
avowedly  olfactory  ;  with  Mr.  Archer,  grimly  in- 
!  tolerant  of  imagination  ;  at  the  Universities, 
lecturing  on  Art  for  Art  ;  on  the  newspapers, 
giving  up  Religion  and  Morality  as  a  bad  job  ;  to 


THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC.      i8i 

be  known  everywhere  by  his  leading  charaeteristicKS 
— a  temperament  which  forbids  enthusiasm,  and  a 
character  which  is  heterodox,  not  merely  by  consti- 
tution, but  out  of  predetermination  to  be  'knowing.' 
But  this  honest  young  man  of  'A  Young  Man's 
Confessions  '  is  the  spokesman  of  all  the  rest.  He, 
at  all  events,  is  not  disingenuous.  He,  at  all 
events,  has  shown  his  class  as  it  is,  in  all  the  nudity 
of  its  cynicism,  in  all  the  plenary  audacity  of  its 
unbelief  We  ought  not,  therefore,  to  be  very 
angry  with  him,  after  all. 

So  far  as  the  Young  Man  as  Critic  is  concerned, 
there  is  little  more  to  be  said.  It  is  with  him, 
under  the  various  forms  which  I  have  described, 
and  under  others  with  which  my  readers  are  doubt- 
less familiar,  that  the  men  of  thought,  the  men  of 
another  and,  I  think,  a  nobler  temperament,  have  to 
reckon.  It  is  he  who  will  criticise  us  or  ignore  us, 
praise  us  or  abuse  us  ;  from  him  the  rising  genera- 
tion will  learn,  at  least  for  a  little  w^hile,  how  to 
estimate  us.  He  it  is  who  is  talking  imbecilities 
in  a  thousand  magazines  and  newspapers.  He 
it  is  who  is  filling  the  free  air  of  literature  with 
the  chatter  of  the  salon  and  the  argot  of  the 
studio.  He  is  fundamentally  and  constitutionally 
cynical  and  destructive,  as  opposed  to  those 
individuals  who,  be  they  small  or  great,  ar)b  / 
fundamentally  and  constitutionally  sympathetic  " 
and   creative.      Fortunately  for  Art,   for   Letters, 


lyc 


1 82      THE  MODERN  YOUNG  MAN  AS  CRITIC. 

he  is  fast  becoming  a  public  bore,  a  crying  scandal. 
But  for  this  fact,  which  may  ensure  his  summary 
extinction  and  self-effacement,  this  woeful  Young 
Man  might  succeed  in  destroying  creative  litera- 
ture altogether. 


IS  CHIVALEY  STILL  POSSIBLE? 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE? 

To     the    Editor    of    the     '  Daily     Telegraph' 

Sir, 

While  congratulating  myself  on  the  com- 
plimentary expressions  contained  in  your  edi- 
torial article,  on  the  subject  of  my  paper ^  in 
the  current  number  of  the  Universal  Review,  I 
am  constrained  to  deprecate  certain  remarks  in 
which  you  appear  to  class  me  with  merely  de- 
structive critics,  incapable  of  enthusiasm  for  any- 
thing contemporary.  I  know  that  I  have  been 
previously  so  classified,  chiefly  because  I  have 
thought  it  my  duty  on  more  than  one  occasion  to 
attack  popular  reputations.  I  have  invariably  done 
so,  however,  on  public — never  on  merely  literary — 
grounds.  But  to  say  that  I  do  not  honour  or 
glorify  every  contemporary  is  quite  another  thing 
to  saying  that  I  have  depreciated  all.  My  error, 
indeed,  has  been,  in  certain  cases,  on  the  side  of 
enthusiasm.  As  one  instance  in  point,  I  may 
mention  the  fact  that  I  worked  loyally  twenty 
years  ago  to  establish  the  literary  reputation  of 
*  The  preceding  article. 


i86  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE? 

Mr.  Browning,  and  that  I  have  at  this  moment 
before  me  a  letter  from  that  gentleman  describing 
me  as  'the  kindest  critic  he  ever  had.'  In  short, 
I  hold  him  to  be  a  poor  critic  indeed,  or  no  critic 
at  all,  who  reserves  all  his  idolatry  for  the  gods  of 
the  past,  and  can  find  no  divinities,  literary  or 
artistic,  in  the  present.  This,  however,  is  merely 
by  the  way.  The  matter  which  moves  me  to  write 
this  letter  [is  of  far  higher  importance  than  any 
of  my  personal  sympathies  or  antipathies — of  far 
more^^burning  consequence  than  any  subject  merely 
'  literary.'  I  have  touched  upon  it  currente  calamo 
in  the  paper  you  have  criticised  so  sympathetically. 
I  am  anxious  to  touch  upon  it  again,  with  your 
permission. 

One  of  my  strongest  contentions  against  the 
Modern  Young  Man  as  Critic — against,  in  other 
words,  the  average  half-educated,  semi-cultivated, 
small  pessimist  of  the  present  generation — is  that, 
thanks  to  him  and  his,  Chivalry  is  fast  becoming 
forgotten ;  that  the  old  faith  in  the  purity  of 
womanhood,  which  once  made  men  heroic,  is  being 
fast  exchanged  for  an  utter  disbelief  in  all  feminine 
ideals  whatsoever  ;  and  that  women,  in  their  turn, 
in  their  certainty  of  the  contempt  of  men,  are 
spiritually  deteriorating.  As  an  illustration  of  this, 
I  state  that  the  jDiteous  type  of  the  Magdalen, 
which  had  so  signal  and  sublime  an  influence  on 
life,  on  literature,  and  on  art,  is  now  put  aside,  not 
merely   as   sentimental,    but   as    practically   '  inex- 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  1  187 

pedient,'  while  the  pent-up  barbarity  and  savagery 
of  the  pseudo-scientist  falls  with  all  the  violence  of 
horror  on  the  class  called  ^  fallen.'  As  I  write, 
one  of  your  contemporaries  proposes  to  get  rid  of 
certain  midnight  nuisances,  which  culminated  a  few 
nights  ago  in  a  disgraceful  street  scene,  by  giving 
absolute  and  practically  despotic  power  *  to  the 
police  ' — that  is,  to  its  individual  members.  Every 
day,  in  every  club-room,  we  are  told  by  men  of  the 
world  that  there  is  practically  no  such  thing  as 
*  seduction,'  and  that  the  hideous  nightmare  which 
haunts  our  civilization  is  really  born  out  of  the 
folly  and  the  depravity  of  womankind.  So  that,  it 
would  seem,  the  only  way  to  deal  with  the  Abomin- 
able is  to  put  it  under  the  control  of  the  guardians 
of  the  peace,  and,  while  accepting  its  necessity,  to 
take  care  that  it  does  not  trouble  our  social  comfort. 
Here,  again,  I  am  in  serious  disagreement  with 
the  quasi-scientific  Pessimist  of  To-day.  So  far 
from  having  the  Abominable  hushed  up  and  well 
regulated,  I  would  have  it  flaunted  publicly,  in  all 
its  hideousness,  till  the  real  truth  is  understood — 
that  it  is  a  creation  of  the  filth  of  man's  heart,  and 
that  the  class  called  *  fallen '  is  practically  a  clasf^ 
of  Martyrs.  Heaven  knows,  I  am  not  writing  as  a 
would-be  moralist  and  Pharisee  ;  Heaven  knows,  I 
am  not  blind  to  my  own  or  my  sister's  infirmity  ! 
But  when  the  pessimist  postulates,  firstly,  with 
Swedenborg,  that  this  human  sacrifice  is  a  necessity, 
and,  secondly,  that  women  as  a  class  wilfully  and 


1 88  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  1 

cheerfully  sacrifice  themselves,  I  know  out  of  my 
own  experience  that  he  is  uttering  a  lie  ! 

We  have  consistently  degraded  Women.  From 
generation  to  generation  we  have  denied  them  their 
moral  privileges.  We  have  asserted  that  their 
only  function  is  parasitic,  their  best  qualities  less 
intellectual  than  instinctive.  But  hitherto,  while 
complacently  admitting  their  inferiority,  we  have 
believed  in  their  moral  influence,  in  their  divine 
sympathy.  Now  at  last,  while  Jack  the  Ripper 
in  Whitechapel  desecrates  and  destroys  the  bodily 
mansion,  his  kinsman,  the  Pessimist  of  To-day,  pol- 
lutes the  tabernacle  of  Woman's  Soul.  He  frankly 
despises  and  persistently  depreciates  what  was  once 
a  temple  where  all  strong  men,  all  men  who  were 
sons,  husbands,  or  fathers,  might  meet  and  pray. 
There  is,  he  says,  no  '  seduction.'  Women  minister, 
for  the  most  part  cheerfully,  to  our  vanities  and 
our  pleasures.  Antigones,  Cordelias,  Kosalinds, 
Imogens,  Eugenie  Grandets,  are  the  mere  dreams  of 

*  poets.'  A  popular  dramatist  thinks  he  touches  the 
quick  of  the  question  by  making  comic  capital  of 

*  Woman's  Rights.'  Popular  poets  and  novelists 
swarm  the  bagnios  of  literature  with  Monsters, 
which  they  label  '  Studies  of  Women.'  Certain  of 
contempt,  certain  of  misconception,  women  at  last 
throw  off  their  lendings,  and  become  what  men 
make  them.  The  Rome  of  Juvenal  repeats  itself 
in  the  London  of  to-day.  And  masculine  cor- 
ruption, male  deterioration,  is,   I   contend,  at  the 


/S  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE 'i  189 

bottom  of  it  all.  The  master,  who  once  worshipped 
his  slave  because  she  was  beautiful,  now  scorns  her 
because  he  believes  her  to  be  base.  Let  it  not  be 
forgotten,  either,  in  this  connection,  that  those 
women  who  most  cheerfully  accept  the  masters 
supremacy,  and  wear  with  his  sanction  the  raiment 
of  conventional  morality — -those  women  who  are 
bought  and  sold,  not  in  the  streets,  but  in  the 
hisfher  marriaofe  market — are  the  bitterest  enemies, 
the  cruellest  judges,  of  such  members  of  their  own 
sex  as  sink  to  sorrow  or  try  to  escape  convention. 
The  petted  favourite  assists  her  lord  to  hunt  down 
her  less  fortunate  sisters. 

This  question  is  far  too  broad  and  world-em- 
bracing to  be  discussed  in  a  newspaper  letter. 
Some  good  may  be  done,  however,  by  asking  if  it 
is  not  possible,  in  the  face  of  the  grievous  social 
peril — the  threatened  loss  of  a  Feminine  Ideal — 
for  some  few  men,  knights  errant  in  the  modern 
sense,  but  full  of  the  old  faith,  the  old  enthusiasm, 
to  remind  the  world,  in  the  very  teeth  of  modern 
pessimists,  of  what  woman  has  been  to  the  world, 
and  of  what  she  may  yet  become  ;  to  keep  intact 
for  our  civilization  the  living  belief  which  sanctified 
a  Madonna  and  a  Magdalen  ;  to  protect  the  help- 
less, to  sympathize  with  the  unfortunate,  and,  above 
all,  despite  the  familiar  sneer  of  the  worldling  and 
the  coarse  laugh  of  the  sensualist,  to  reverse  the 
familiar  adage  now  and  then,  and  read  it  cherchez 
V Homme  f     Quite   recently,   I  am    happy  to  say, 


1 90  IS  CHIVALR  Y  STILL  POSSIBLE  ? 


the  man  has  been  sought  and  found.  We  may- 
find  him  much  oftener,  if  we  try  !  I  for  one,  at 
least,  look  forward  anxiously  and  hopefully  for  some 
glimpse  of  the  old  Chivalry,  which  set  the  name 
of  Bayard  high  as  a  star  in  Heaven,  and  made 
even  the  eccentric  Don  Quixote  a  figure  to  sweeten 
human  happiness  and  *  brighten  the  sunshine.' 

Robert  Buchanan. 

[The  preceding  letter  elicited  a  long  and  charac- 
teristic letter  from  Mrs.  Lynn  Lynton,  from  which 
I  quote  as  follows  :] 

^  Can  anyone  explain  how  it  is  that,  when 
people  discuss  the  Woman  Question  in  any  of  its 
phases,  they  lose  sight  of  proportion  and  take  their 
leave  of  common-sense  ?  The  Idealists  seem  to 
hold  women  as  altogether  of  a  different  race  from 
men  ;  not  only  diff'erent  in  degree,  but  different  in 
kind ;  not  only  told  off  by  Nature  for  certain 
special  functions,  whereby  are  emphasized  certain 
common  qualities,  but  as  possessing  intentions, 
faculties,  characteristics  with  which  men  have 
nothing  to  do.  To  these  Idealists  women,  qud 
women,  are  semi-divine,  where  men  are  more  than 
half  bestial.  The  sex  is  sacred,  and  to  be  a  woman 
is  to  be  ex  officio  consecrated.  To  the  Cynics,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  be  a  woman  is  to  be  the  source 
of  all  the  evil  in  the  world — where  each  daughter 
of  Eve  repeats  her  mother's  folly  and  transgression, 


IS  CHIVALR  Y  STILL  POSSIBLE  ?  191 


and  where  men  are  but  the  puppets  whom  she 
makes  dance  at  her  pleasure.  Mr.  Buchanan 
offers  himself  as  an  Idealist,  and  talks  sentimental 
bunkum  with  splendid  literary  power.  .  .  .  Where 
has  woman  deteriorated  ?  Why,  even  the  poor 
Abominables  are  less  degraded  than  of  olden 
times ;  and  the  modern  danger  with  respect  to 
them  is  not  of  their  oppression,  but  of  their  being 
treated  with  undue  partiality — so  that  the  good  of 
the  community  is  less  considered  than  their  un 
checked  individuality.  As  for  the  Chivalry  of 
which  so  much  nonsense  is  talked  and  so  little  true 
knowledge  is  afloat — well,  it  may  stand  as  a  sign, 
like  any  other  algebraic  symbol.  We  need  these 
signs  and  symbols  in  life — words  which  evoke 
ideas,  no  matter  whether  the  root  be  real  or  not. 
The  past  of  Chivalry  was  a  very  different  thing 
from  this  all-embracing,  all-suggestive,  this  verbal 
symbol  for  an  impossible  ideal.  .  .  .  Chivalry  died 
because  it  became  corrupt,  affected,  and  unreal. 
The  true  hold  that  women  had  then  on  the 
respect  and  love  of  men  was  to  be  found  in  the 
bower  and  the  hall — the  house,  where  women 
reign,  and  where  alone  they  ought  to  reign.  Men 
came  from  the  heat  and  passion  of  the  strife  to 
the  rest  and  peace,  the  wholesome  purity  and  order, 
of  the  house.  Women  were  their  solace,  ministering 
to  their  needs,  soothing  their  weariness,  healing 
their  wounds.  The  clash  and  din  of  battle  were 
exchanged  for  the  music  of  the  bower,  the  peaceful 


192  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  ? 


revelry  of  the  hall.  Thus  it  came  about  that  in 
those  rough  fighting  times  women  were  indeed,  in 
a  sense,  sacred  ;  that  the  house  was,  as  it  were, 
their  temple ;  and  that,  alternating  as  they  did 
with  the  rude  life  without  the  castle  walls,  they 
were  idealized  and  reverenced  by  the  men  who 
died  to  protect  them.  How  this  spirit  will  survive 
the  modern  acceptance  of  warfare  as  part  of 
woman's  life  remains  to  be  seen.  We  have  no 
longer  harryings  and  raids,  burning  of  homesteads, 
and  lifting  of  cattle,  but  we  have,  instead,  party 
cries  and  political  passions  ;  and  when  these  have 
invaded  the  home,  and  women  are  fighters  with 
their  men  and  against  their  men,  it  is  to  be 
feared  the  fabric  of  society  as  at  present  con- 
stituted will  fall  to  pieces,  to  be  built  up  again  on 
a  different — but  a  better  ? — plan. 

'  As  for  the  degradation  of  women  by  men,  that 
applies  to  only  one  of  the  various  relations  be- 
tween the  sexes.  Do  men  degrade  their  mothers, 
their  sisters,  their  daughters,  their  wives  ?^  Here 
and  there  a  few  wretches  may,  just  as  here  and 
there  a  few  women  kill  their  children  for  the 
sake  of  their  insurance  money  ;  but  not  the  mass 
— not  the  generality.  In  that  most  tremendous 
problem  of  how  to  reconcile  the  imperative  laws 
of  human  nature  with  the  arbitrary  requirements 

*  Most  absolutely.  By  the  existing  moral  codes,  they  degrade 
them.  Corruption  begins  in  the  household,  aad  spreads  thence 
into  the  street. — R.  B, 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  1  193 

of  society,  women  suffer,  and  must  suffer.  .  .  .  The 
Magdalen  is  a  very  beautiful  theme  for  art  and 
poetry,  but  the  poor  drunken  flaunting  Professionals 
are  stern  facts — the  results  of  poverty  and  passion 
combined — and  white  kid  gloves  are  as  much  out 
of  place  when  dealing  with  them  as  either  art  or 
poetry.  Let  that  pass.  Women  have  inflicted 
the  deadliest  wrong  on  their  generation  in  con- 
nection with  their  unhappy  sisters,  but  in  a  very 
different  sense  from  that  deprecated  by  Mr. 
Buchanan  ;  and  I  repeat  it — the  present  danger 
is  not  in  over-severity,  but  in  over-petting  and 
sentimentality,  in  maudlin  pity  and  unjust  par- 
tiality. If,  as  Mr.  Buchanan  says,  men  are  the 
causes  of  all  the  misery  of  the  world,  and  cherchez 
VHomme  ought  to  take  the  place  of  the  familiar 
cherchez  la  Femme,  are  not  men  the  direct  and 
absolute  creation  of  woman  ?  Built  up  day  by 
day  out  of  the  very  substance  of  her  body,  do  they 
not  also  receive  their  first  ineffaceable  mental  im- 
pressions from  her  ?  As  mothers,  have  not  women 
unchecked  power  —  absolute  authority  ?  How 
foolish  it  is  to  differentiate  the  sexes  on  one  ground 
only,  and  to  judge  of  men  and  women  simply  on 
the  platform  of  unlawful  love  !  For  that  is  what  the 
whole  thing  comes  to.  The  wholesome  orderliness 
of  marriage,  the  dignity  of  the  home  and  family,  the 
domestic  influence  of  women — all  this  is  ignored  ; 
and  the  wife  and  mother,  mistress  of  her  house  and 
shaper   of  her   children's  minds  and  characters,  is 

13 


194  /^  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE? 

forgotten  for  the  sake  of  the  poor  Abominable 
whom  Mr.  Buchanan  wants  us  to  ideahze  as  the 
Magdalen  !  But,  indeed,  all  this  clamour  about 
woman,  whether  as  ideals,  as  subjects  for  '  dissec- 
tion,' or  as  very  pitiful  realities,  is  in  itself 
destructive  of  the  virtues  which  should  be  specially 
theirs  before  all  of  that  modesty  which  was  the 
very  core  of  her  chivalrous  ideal.  And  why  all 
this  fatal  incense  of  flattery  ?  Smaller  than  men, 
with  weaker  animal  instincts  and  weaker  heroic 
virtues,  why  should  they  be  worshipped  as  superior 
beings,  too  good  for  life  as  we  have  it  ?  If  men 
are  to  worship  us,  what  are  we  to  reverence  ? 
Ourselves — like  the  Buddha  on  the  lotus-leaf? 
Some  already  do,  not  to  the  edification  of  the 
race  at  large  ;  while  those  who  still  frankly  and 
womanfully  acknowledge  their  natural  leaders  in  men 
are  treated  as  traitresses  to  the  divine  cause.   .   .   . 

E.  Lynn  Linton. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  '  Daily  Telegraph.* 

Sir, 

I  was  in  hopes  that  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton's  very 
characteristic  letter,  published  in  your  issue  of  the 
27th,  would  have  been  answered  by  some  authori- 
tative person  of  her  own  sex.  In  common  with 
everybody  else,  I  admire  Mrs.  Linton  hugely,  and 
have  done  so  ever  since  the  days  when  she  who 
had  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  old  heathen  Landor  first 
began    scarifying    her    less    accomplished    sisters. 


7S  CHIVALR  V  STILL  POSSIBLE  ?  195 

Who  does  not  love  a  clever  woman,  even  one  with 
a  bee — in  this  case  was  it  a  wasp  ? — in  her  bonnet  ? 
Who  cannot  forgive  a  brilliant  woman,  even  when 
she  becomes  angry  and  describes  male  Chivalry  as 
'  sentimental  bunkum  '  ?      This  gifted  lady  begins 
by  asking  in  a  tone  of  no  little  asperity,  '  Can  an}^- 
one  explain  why  it  is  that,  when  people  discuss  the 
Woman  Question  in  any  of  its  phases,  they  take 
their  leave  of  common-sense  ?'     Let  me,  in  Scottish 
fashion,  duplicate  this  question  with  another.      Can 
anyone   explain   why  it   is   that  when  ladies  of  a 
certain  temperament  discuss  the  characters  of  their 
own  sex  they  take  their  leave  of  common  charity  ? 
Mrs.    Lynn    Linton    is    a    serious    writer,    and 
deserves  to   be  dealt  with  seriously  ;  otherwise   I 
should  have  looked  upon  her  letter  as  a  mere  flash 
from  the  sombre  spectacles  of  some  Mrs.  Pardiggle 
converted  to  the  religion  of  the  Hall  of  Science. 
Strangely  enough,  she,  a  woman  of  rare  intellectual 
gifts,  is  on  the  side  of  those  who  would  rivet  the 
chains  on  womankind  ;  who  sneer  at  men  in  whose 
opinion  the  ^  sex  is  sacred '  ;  who  talk  about   the 
*  idealization  '  of  woman  as   ^  absurd ' ;    who  think 
that  the  world  is  in  danger,  not  of  being  too  cruel 
to  the  fallen  and  the  driven,  but  of  treating  them 
'  with    undue    partiality.'      Well,    I    suppose     she 
ought  to    know.      George   Eliot   could   never    get 
over  her  hatred  of  pretty  women — of  poor  butter- 
flies like  Hetty  Sorrel ;    and  Mrs.   Linton,  if  she 
spoke    her    mind,    would    no    doubt    say    that    all 

13 — 2 


196  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  ? 

naughty  creatures  deserve  ^  slapping.'  Thus  far, 
indeed,  I  can  understand  her  ;  but  when  she  goes 
on  to  talk  about  '  the  imperative  laws  of  human 
nature,'  and  says  that  ^  the  whole  question  of  the 
Abominable  is  one  not  of  sentimentality,  but  of 
political  economy,'  I  am  lost  in  wonder.  I  remem- 
ber on  one  occasion,  many  years  ago,  when  someone 
was  talking  at  the  late  G.  H.  Lewes's  about  a 
simple  social  question  chiefly  affecting  the  nursery, 
the  voice  of  George  Eliot  suddenly  intoned,  *  Very 
true  ;  but,  in  that  case,  what  is  to  become  of  our 
Jurisprudence  f  Jurisprudence  was  a  good  word, 
and  so  is  political  economy,  but  I  have  yet  to  learn 
what  political  economy  has  to  do  with  Chivalry. 
And  then,  mirabile  dictu  !  '  the  imperative  laws  of 
human  nature.'  Is  Sensuality,  then,  a  ^  law '  ? 
Just  as  much,  perhaps,  as  Virtue  is  a  *  law,'  or 
Purity,  or  Philanthropy,  or  Misanthropy,  or  any 
other  '  anthropy  ' ;  and  in  this  case,  I  suppose,  Mrs. 
Linton's  ferocious  Nymphophobia  is  a  ^  law  '  too  ! 

This  is  not  the  place,  nor  is  the  present  the 
occasion,  to  discuss  the  interminable  question  of 
Woman's  Rights.  To  many  sensible  people  the 
very  idea  of  social  and  political  activity  on  the  part 
of  women  is  annoying,  if  not  repulsive.  For  my 
part,  I  sympathize  with  any  movement  which  may 
render  Woman  more  happy,  more  active,  more 
beneficent,  and,  above  all,  more  influential.  Woman 
will  never  be  the  equal  of  Man,  because  [p>ace  Mrs. 
Linton)  she  is  so  infinitely  his  superior.      Just  as 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE?  197 

the  reason  of  a  human  being  transcends  the  instinct 
of  an  animal,  so  does  the  insight  of  a  woman 
transcend  the  reason  of  a  man.  Deep  in  the 
nature  of  Hu  manity abides  a  Hght  which  illustrates 
truth  better  than  any  syllogism,  and  this  light 
burns  brightest  in  the  clear  souls  of  the  weaker 
sex.  The  great  Positivist,  as  we  know,  admitted 
this.  For  what,  after  all,  is  Insight  ?  Reason 
enlarged  and  glorified.  And  what,  to  proceed  still 
higher,  is  Faith  ?  Insight  purified  till  it  reaches 
the  subtlety  of  Divination.  Faith  and  Insight, 
the  power  of  perceiving  those  verities  which  con- 
stitute Religion,  are  often  denied  to  great  men ; 
they  are  seldom  denied  to  a  pure  and  perfect  woman. 
This,  of  course,  is  the  creed  of  Chivalry.  In  the 
eyes  of  a  modern  knight-errant  Woman  is  the 
purifier  of  the  earth,  the  creature 

*  Without  whom 
The  earth  would  smell  like  what  it  is — a  tomb  !' 

Whatever  sullies  her,  whatever  degrades  her  to 
a  lower  level  of  thought  and  action,  injures  and 
hampers  man  s  own  progress  upwards.  I  am  now, 
of  course,  talking  of  the  Ideal,  not  always,  yet  very 
often,  realized  in  contemporary  experience.  Un- 
happy, however,  is  that  man  who  has  never  realized 
such  an  Ideal  at  all  ;  who,  after  base  moments  of 
the  strenuous  sense,  after  misconception  and  moral 
backsliding,  after  the  blows  and  buffets  of  the 
world,  after  all  the  efforts  of  his  reason  to  solve  the 
ever-present  Mystery,  has  not  been  comforted  and 


198  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  I 

strengthened  by  the  faith  and  insight,  the  pure 
benediction  of  a  woman's  belief  and  love.  The 
free-and-easy  scientists,  the  patterers  about  *  here- 
dity/ '  development  of  species,'  '  laws  of  nature,' 
'  moral  dynamics,'  resolve  the  difference  between 
the  sexes  into  a  mere  little  matter  of  physiology. 
Just  so  ;  a  little  matter  which,  according  to  some 
physiologists,  gives  Woman  a  second  and  supple- 
mentary brain,  or,  according  to  sentimentalists, 
gives  her  a  clearer  spiritual  vision,  the  lens  of  a 
finer-seeing  soul.  The  votaries  of  Chivalry,  the 
preachers  of  sentimental  bunkum,  find  in  the 
Ewigweihliche  an  abiding  temple  ;  on  its  thres- 
hold, kneeling  prone,  the  Magdalen  ;  in  its  inmost 
shrine,  typical  and  supremely  spiritual,  the 
Madonna. 

Here,  however,  I  would  pause  to  deprecate  all 
misconception.  When  I  wrote  of  masculine  purity, 
I  was  not  posing  as  a  moralist,  least  of  all  as  an 
Ascetic.  I  am  not  of  that  sect  which  macerates 
the  flesh,  and  pretends  to  find  baseness  in  all 
sensuous  passion.  I  simply  contend  that  the  re- 
lations between  the  sexes,  when  not  consecrated 
by  spiritual  Love,  become  purely  animal ;  that  the 
buying  and  selling  of  what  is  the  divinest  posses- 
sion given  by  God  to  human  nature  is  a  living 
horror  and  a  deadly  sin.  Personally,  indeed,  I 
would  rather  be  Burns  than  St.  Simeon  Stylites, 
and  should  prefer,  on  the  whole,  to  be  lost  with 
Byron  than  saved  with  Mrs.  Hannah  More. 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE?  199 


Chastity  is  the  noblest  privilege  of  Womanhood; 
it  is  more,  it  is  a  quality  appertaining  to  Woman 
as  light  to  the  ruby,  '  growing  more  precious  as  it 
nears  the  core  ' ;  but  it  does  not  preclude,  it  in- 
cludes and  sanctifies.  Passion.  A  passionless 
heart  is  not  necessarily  a  pure  one  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, those  hearts  are  the  purest  which  can  burn 
most  ardently.  In  one  suggestion,  perhaps,  Mrs. 
Linton  is  right  enough — that  we  are  all  very 
human.  For  that  very  reason  let  us  beware  how 
we  forget  that  the  purest  Soul  who  ever  wore 
earth  about  Him  was  not  only  the  greatest  Senti- 
mentalist, but  the  greatest  Logician.  He  knew 
the  truth  so  far  as  it  concerns  our  poor  human 
nature  ;  and  out  of  His  infinite  insight  came  the 
deathless  Ideal  from  which  Mrs.  Linton  turns  to 
*  laws  of  human  nature  '  and  to  ^  political  economy 
— the  Ideal  of  the  Magdalen. 

I  am,  etc., 

Robert  Buchanan. 

[To  the  foregoing  Mrs.  Linton  replied  as 
follows  :] 

Mr.  Buchanan  calls  my  letter  *  characteristic' 
I  accept  the  term  as  meaning  that  in  this,  as  in 
other  matters,  I  have  kept  my  head  cool  and  level 
in  the  midst  of  the  heated  and  sickly  wave  of 
sentimentality  with  which  we  are  flooded  for  the 
moment — let  us  hope  only  for  the  moment  !     And 


200  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE? 

in  this  special  part  of  the  great,  rampant,  noisy 
Woman  Question,  I  trust  that  it  is  characteristic 
in  me  to  remember  what  the  ideahzers  of  street- 
walkers do  not,  that  we  have  our  virtuous  young 
to  care  for  even  more  than  their  poor  erring  sisters, 
and  that  any  class  movement  which  weakens  the 
joints  of  national  virtue  is  an  evil  to  be  fought 
against  by  all  who  regard  the  general  good. 

Let  Mr.  Buchanan  or  any  of  his  school  consider 
what  is  the  likely  effect  of  all  this  high-flown 
idealization  on  the  mind  and  principles  of  the 
struggling  hard-worked  girl  who  resists  the  easy 
temptation  of  the  streets,  and  prefers,  to  vice  and 
champagne,  chastity  and  a  crust.  She  resists  that 
temptation  importuning  her  at  every  turn,  in  part 
for  self-respect,  in  part  for  religious  fear,  but  in 
part  also  for  that  potent  influence — the  esteem  of 
the  world,  with  its  correlative,  the  loss  of  character 
and  consequent  loss  of  consideration.  But  when 
she  reads  of  the  women  whose  lives  she  has  been 
taught  to  loathe,  talked  of  as  only  the  pitiable 
victims  of  man  s  brutality,  held  as  themselves  free 
from  moral  blame,  and  as  the  fit  objects  for 
admiration  and  pathetic  idealization,  how  much 
easier  does  that  make  her  own  hard  struggle? 
Difficult  enough  as  things  are — her  fall  offering 
her  all  things  pleasant  to  youth  and  womanhood — 
this  perversion  of  the  wholesome  moral  law  which 
pronounced  these  women  moral  outcasts  makes  it 
ten    times    harder.       It    takes    awav   one    of    the 


IS  CHIVALR  Y  STILL  POSSIBLE  ?  201 

strongest  of  the  props  which  support  her  poor 
fragile  temple  of  virtue,  and  it  undermines  the 
others.  There  is  no  religious  fear  of  offending 
God  necessary  for  a  woman  who  qualifies  herself 
to  be  called  the  Magdalen — the  beloved  of  Christ, 
whose  sins  were  forgiven  because  she  loved  much. 
Instead  of  the  contempt  of  the  world  she  has  the 
prurient  petting  of  the  men  who  stand  and  sigh 
over  her — of  the  women  who  question  first  and 
exhort  afterwards.  Her  self-respect  receives  no 
shock,  for  in  her  fall  she  is  more  cared  for  than 
ever  she  was  in  her  virtue,  and  the  joy  of  the 
angels  in  heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth 
is  nothing  compared  to  the  excitement  of  which 
she  is  the  centre.  If  she  believes  the  newspapers 
and  the  idealists,  she  cannot  condemn  herself  She 
is  a  victim,  according  to  some  ;  a  martyr  whose 
life  was  a  sacrifice,  and  who  is  worthy  of  all  esteem, 
according  to  others.  That  she  preferred  fine 
dresses,  idleness,  and  the  excitements  of  drink  and 
adventures  to  close,  dry,  ill-paid  work  was  no  sign 
of  a  lower  taste,  but  was  all  the  fault  of  men — as, 
indeed,  in  one  way  it  was,  but  not  in  the  way 
meant  by  the  idealists.  I  repeat  it,  and  I  know 
that  thousands  of  kindly  women  and  humane  men 
will  bear  me  out  in  what  I  say.  This  sentimental 
placing  of  prostitutes  on  an  ideal  pedestal  as 
objects  for  poetry  and  pity  only,  and  not  at  all 
as  objects  for  condemnation,  is  one  of  the  most 
disastrous   things   in  all   this  flabby  age,    in  view 

>"^   OF  THE 

WWTVERSIT 


202  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE? 

of  the  young  who  have  to  be  kept  straight  against 
difficulties  and  in  the  face  of  temptations.  Anyone 
who  for  over  forty  years  has  walked  about  London 
as  I  have  done  must  have  seen  and  heard  things 
which  take  all  the  sentimentality  about  vice  out 
of  one.  Good,  generous,  loving,  and  even  essen- 
tially pure-hearted  girls  there  are,  one  in  ten 
thousand  among  the  class  ;  but,  as  a  class,  to  treat 
them  with  poetry  and  sentimentality  is  a  wrong 
done  to  society  at  large,  and  an  infinite  wrong  done 
to  the  virtuous. 

On  another  account,  too,  I  differ  from  the 
idealists.  While  seeking  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of 
woman's  influence  and  power — as  some  of  us  think, 
disastrously  to  the  nation — they,  in  the  matter 
of  chastity,  take  from  her  the  moral  responsibility 
she  has  ever  had  as  the  conservator  of  virtue.  It 
is  the  fashion  now  to  say  it  is  all  the  men's  fault, 
and  the  women  are  not  to  be  blamed  if  they  fall — 
they  are  helpless  to  protect  themselves.  The  men 
ought  even  to  resist  temptations  oflfered  to  them. 
The  conscience  of  woman  says  differently.  Save 
in  the  case  of  the  very  young,  whose  ruin  rests 
on  the  mothers  who  did  not  properly  safeguard 
them,  women  are  their  own  guardians.  And  ought 
to  be.  If  they  are  to  be  held  capable  of  governing 
the  Empire,  they  should  be  made  accountable  at 
least  for  their  own  self-governance.  If  they  are 
to  be  man's  '  abiding  temple,'  they  should  of  their 
own  proper  force  keep  that  temple  clean  and  pure. 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE?  203 

It  is  emphatically  in  their  own  choice  not  to  listen 
to  serpents  and  not  to  eat  forbidden  apples  ;  or  to 
lend  a  willing  ear,  and  run  the  danger  of  the  rest. 
To  give  them  a  broader  political  margin,  and  to 
narrow  their  moral  borders,  seems  to  me,  and  to 
many  more  than  myself,  a  terrible  inversion  of  good 
sense  and  right  reasoning.   ... 

I  am,  etc., 

E.  Lynn  Linton. 

[Like  some  ladies  when  they  argue,  Mrs.  Linton 
would  not  see  the  point.  I  charged  men  with 
being  the  chief  factors  in  the  debasement  of  women, 
and  she  retorted  that  prostitutes  must  not  be 
idealized,  and  that  we  must  keep  our  women 
pure  !  etc. 

Perhaps  recent  revelations,  such  as  the  West 
Ham  tragedy,  may  incline  my  matron  militant  to 
think  men  are  not  quite  such  superior  creatures. 
If  she  still  holds  to  that  opinion,  let  her  consult 
the  Sisters  of  Nazareth  who  took  under  their 
protection  two  little  children,  of  seven  and  fiwe. 
years  old  respectively.  True,  these  things  are 
not  for  common  publication.  The  men  who  de- 
filed a  public  newspaper  with  the  details  of  a 
bestial  record  must  have  been  without  conscience 
and  without  shame.  But  it  is  well  not  to  blind 
ours  elv  es  altogether  to  the  horrors  of  masculine 
Lust ;  it  is  as  well  not  to  forget  the  failures  of  the 
Beast  that  walks  upright. 


204  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE? 

Again,  Chastity  in  itself  is  merely  a  negative 
merit.  There  may  be,  and  is,  infinite  harlotry  of 
the  Soul  even  in  so-called  virtue.  The  poetry  of 
life  seduces  nobody,  and  is  not  prurient.  The 
prurient  woman  is  she  who  hugs  to  herself  the 
finery  of  her  own  purity,  and  scofiPs  at  sentiment 
in  connection  with  her  driven  sisters.  Mrs.  Linton 
is,  so  far  as  her  present  utterance  is  concerned, 
another  example  of  my  proposition — that  culture 
and  intelligence  are  lower  in  the  moral  scale  than 
temperament,  than  sympathy.  Reduced  to  the 
elements  of  Science,  her  opinions  would  fortify 
all  the  filth,  all  the  destructiveness,  of  our  social 
system.] 

To  the  Editor  of  the  '  Daily  Telegraph  J 
Sir, 

Mr.  Hobert  Buchanan  asks  you  whether 
'  Chivalry  is  still  possible ' — meaning,  as  I  gather, 
Is  it  possible  to  revive  that  ideal  of  conduct  on  the 
part  of  man  towards  women,  which  is  designated, 
in  strictly  modern  metaphor,  '  chivalrous '?  I  say 
in  metaphor,  and  in  modern  metaphor,  because,  as 
Mr.  Buchanan  is  of  course  well  aware,  the  ideal 
which  men  of  later  days  have  constructed  for  them- 
selves in  this  matter  has  never  had  any  complete 
historical  realization  in  the  past — the  position  of 
woman  in  the  so-called  age  of  chivalry  being,  in 
more  than  one  respect,  conspicuously  inferior  to 
that    which    she    occupies    even    in    our  own    un- 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE?  205 

chivalrous  times.  Taking  the  word,  however,  in 
the  meaning  which  Mr.  Buchanan  obviously  in- 
tends us  to  assign  to  it,  and  asking  ourselves  the 
question  whether  it  is  possible  to  revive  chivalry 
in  this  sense,  it  appears  to  me  that  we  are  at 
once  brought  face  to  face  with  two  preliminary 
questions  :  First,  did  chivalry  of  this  description 
ever  exist  at  all,  except  among  a  comparatively 
small  class  of  the  community  ?  And,  secondly,  is 
it  not  to  the  limited  extent  of  that  existence 
still  as  flourishing  and  as  little  in  need  of  revival 
as  ever  ? 

That  genuine  examples  of  this  noble  habit  of 
mind  and  lofty  standard  of  conduct  are,  and  always 
have  been,  to  be  found  among  us,  I  would  be  the 
last  to  deny.  There  have  always  been  men  of 
pure  and  high  nature  who  have  constructed  for 
themselves  an  ideal  type  of  womanhood,  which 
they  have  not  only  reverenced  as  sacred  in  itself, 
but  have  regarded  as  extending  its  consecration 
to  every  individual  member  of  the  sex  ;  so  that 
there  shall  be  no  woman,  however  humble  or 
homely  —  nay,  however  sunken  and  degraded  — 
who  can  be  deemed  to  have  altogether  forfeited 
her  title  to  some  share  of  that  exceptional  leniency 
of  judgment,  that  special  gentleness  of  treatment, 
which  chivalry  recognises  as  the  inalienable  birth- 
right of  the  whole  sisterhood.  Such  men,  I  admit, 
have  always  existed.  Colonel  Newcome,  their 
immortal   representative  in   English   fiction,   is  no 


2o6  IS  CHIVALR  Y  STILL  POSSIBLE  ? 

mere  fanciful  creation  in  a  novelist's  brain.  Ori- 
ginals of  that  inspiring  and  pathetic  portrait  are 
to  be  found  among  us  yet  ;  but  they  are  few,  and, 
with  submission  to  Mr.  Buchanan,  they  never 
have  been,  never  will  be,  otherwise  than  few.  It 
is  not  given  to  the  average  man  to  idealize,  to 
discern  for  himself  the  '  soul  of  goodness  in  things 
evil,'  the  indestructible  element  of  purity  in  things 
impure  ;  and  it  is  of  the  average  man  that  Mr. 
Buchanan,  I  have  a  right  to  assume,  is  talking. 
If  he  is  not,  he  on  his  part  has  no  right  to  frame, 
as  he  appears  to  me  to  have  framed,  an  indict- 
ment against  society  at  large.  Such  an  indict- 
ment can  only  be  sustained  by  showing  that  a 
general  decline  has  taken  place  in  the  masculine 
conception  of  womanhood  —  that  the  average 
masculine  mind  is  more  sceptical  than  formerly 
of  the  existence  of  female  purity,  truth,  and 
goodness,  and  less  ready  to  do  homage  to  these 
qualities  where  their  presence  is  too  unmistakable 
to  be  denied. 

It  is  for  Mr.  Buchanan  to  produce  proof,  or  at 
any  rate,  if  absolute  demonstration  is,  as  it  well 
may  be,  impossible  in  such  a  matter,  to  establish 
a  reasonable  presumption  that  such  a  change  has 
taken  place.  I  cannot  think  that  he  has  done 
so.  I  cannot  admit  that  his  appeals  to  the  cynical 
talk  of  '  club-rooms,'  to  the  disquisitions  of  the 
'  quasi-scientific  pessimist,'  and  to  the  '  analytical ' 
fictions   of  the   day,   prove   anything.      As  to  the 


JS  CHIVALRY  STILL  FOSSLBLE?  207 

cynicism  of  the  club-rooms,  it  is  no  doubt,  so  far 
as  it  is  sincere,  and  indeed,  to  some  extent,  if  it 
is  insincere,  a  decidedly  unlovely  thing.  But  I 
altogether  decline  Ho  treat  it  as  a  portentous  sign 
of  the  times.  Does  Mr.  Buchanan  imagine  that 
the  walls  of  those  apartments  have  ever  listened 
to  talk  of  any  other  kind  since  clubs,  or  the 
taverns  which  were  their  forerunners,  first  came 
into  being  ?  Does  he  suppose  that  the  ^  man  of 
the  world,'  and  still  more  the  ^  boy  of  the  world  ' — 
if  he  will  forgive  my  calling  him  so — has  ever 
talked  otherwise  in  any  age ;  that  the  young 
bloods  of  Mr.  Richardson's  day  did  not  think  it 
fine  to  give  themselves  the  airs  of  his  Lovelace, 
and  proclaim  with  many  a  '  damme  '  their  profound 
disbelief  in  the  possibility  of  female  virtue  ?  It  is 
no  doubt  true  that  even  among  the  rakes  of  that 
time  there  were  many  too  honest  and  too  manly 
to  feign  an  incredulity  so  dishonouring  to  the  sex 
to  which  their  mothers  and  sisters  belonged.  Tom 
Jones — to  cite  an  example  which  Mr.  Buchanan 
ought  especially  to  appreciate — scapegrace  as  he 
was,  held  no  such  debasing  view  of  women.  His 
attachment  to  Sophia  saved  him  from  that,  and 
his  love  for  that  young  lady  was  no  doubt  a  passion 
of  the  most  purely  chivalrous  kind.  But  Tom, 
after  all,  would  be  a  dangerous  witness  for  Mr. 
Buchanan  to  call,  for  he  would  certainly  be  cross- 
examined  as  to  his  relations  with  Molly  Seagrim 
and  Lady  Bellaston,  towards  neither  of  whom  was 


2q8  /S  chivalry  still  POSSIBLE f 

the  element  of  chivalry  very  apparent  in  his  be- 
haviour. Probably  he  would  have  brought  himself 
under  your  correspondent's  condemnation  by  citing 
these  two  ladies  in  proof  of  the  odious  proposition 
that  *  Women  minister,  for  the  most  part  cheer- 
fully, to  our  vanities  and  our  pleasures/  No,  sir ; 
I  do  not  believe  that  cynical  dicta  of  this  kind 
are  at  all  more  frequently  propounded  in  our  own 
day  than  at  any  previous  period.  There  has  never 
been  a  time  when  men,  and  especially  young  men 
— and  still  more  especially  vain  young  men — have 
not  professed  this  *  delightfully  wicked  '  disbelief  in 
female  virtue.  It  is  a  necessity  of  their  own 
conception  of  themselves,  for  how  else  could  they 
be  the  irresistible  dogs  they  are  ?  Men,  however, 
who  have  outgrown  this  little  weakness,  and  have 
no  longer  the  character  of  Lotharios  to  support, 
are  as  ready  to  recognise  and  to  respect  purity  in 
woman  as  ever  they  were  ;  whilst  their  attitude 
towards  women  of  whom  that  feminine  grace  can 
no  longer  be  predicated  has,  I  make  bold  to 
say,  distinctly  changed  for  the  better  and  the 
more  ^  chivalrous '  in  these  latter  days.  Mr. 
Buchanan  seems  to  take  peculiar  exception  to 
man's  present  treatment  of  ^  the  class  called 
''  fallen,"  '  as  though  it  had  undergone  a  change 
for  the  worse.  But  surely  it  is  matter  of  the 
commonest  experience  and  observation  that  the 
class  he  refers  to  are,  on  the  whole,  treated  nowa- 
days with  a  forbearance  and  tenderness  which  our 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE!  209 

rougher  ancestors  would  have  been  simply  unable 
to  comprehend. 

As  to  Pessimism  and  the  modern  '  naturalistic  ' 
and  '  analytical '  novelist,  they  do  not  appear  ta 
me  to  play  anything  like  that  important  part  as 
causae  causantes  of  the  decline  of  Chivalry  which 
Mr.  Buchanan  assigns  to  them.  '  Naturalism/  or 
the  discovery  of  the  great  fact  that  human  nature 
consists  wholly  of  the  hideous,  is  a  constant 
phenomenon  in  life  and  letters  ;  and  its  excep- 
tional popularity  and  vogue  at  any  given  moment 
only  shows  that  the  writers  who  for  the  time  being 
are  the  preachers  of  that  dismal  gospel  happen 
tdbe  preachers  of  exceptional  directness  and  force. 
Byron  made  the  same  discovery  in  poetry,  and^ 
lo  !  a  wind  of  Byronism  swept  over  the  land, 
laying  all  young  men's  collars  flat  before  it.  Now 
it  is  Zola  who  makes  the  discovery  in  prose,  and 
very  unpoetic  prose,  and  straightway  follows  the 
epidemic  of  Zolaism.  Of  course  the  great  dis- 
covery is  the  discovery  of  a  mare's-nest,  and  in 
their  secret  hearts  the  discoverers  know  it.  They 
do  not  believe  in  their  own  theory  of  humanity. 
Only  one  man  of  letters  ever  did  ;  and  he  died 
mad,  and  is  buried  in  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral, 
Dublin.  Mr.  Buchanan  should  seek  consolation 
and  reassurance  in  a  pilgrimage  to  that  sombre 
shrine.  Jonathan  Swift  has  preached  the  gospel 
that  your  correspondent  abhors  as  no  man  ever 
preached  it  before  him,  and  as  none  is  ever  likely 

14 


7S  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  ? 


to  preach  it  again  ;  and  Mr.  Buchanan  may  console 
himself  with  the  reflection  that  a  race  which  has 
retained  its  faith  in  itself .  after  reading  the 
*  Voyage  to  the  Houyhnhnms/  is  not  likely  to  be 
converted  to  the  doctrine  of  despair  by  the  author 
of  *  L'Assommoir.' 

As  to  the  operation  of  Pessimism  considered  as 
a  philosophy,  and  the  grave  injustice  of  Mr. 
Buchanan's  attempt  to  fix  it  with  responsibility 
for  the  decline  of  Chivalry  and  other  mischievous 
consequences,  there  is  much  which  I  should  like 
to  say.  And  some  day,  sir,  when  you  can  put 
seven  or  eight  columns  of  your  esteemed  journal 
at  my  disposal,  I  may  perhaps  endeavour  to  say 
it.  I  will  content  myself  at  present  with  assert- 
ing that  the  most  complete  acceptance  of  the 
philosophical  doctrine  of  Pessimism  is  perfectly 
compatible  with  as  complete  a  recognition  and  as 
anxious  a  cultivation  of  all  that  (in  unphilosophical 
language)  is  '  pure,  lovely  and  of  good  report ' 
in  life ;  and  that,  pending  an  opportunity  of 
expounding  and  defending  this  truth  at  greater 
length, 

I  am,  etc., 

An  Injured  Pessimist. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  'Daily  Telegraph' 

Sir, 

Would  that  Fortune  always  sent  me  adver- 
saries like   your  correspondent  'An  Injured  Pes- 


75  CHTVA  LR  Y  STILL  POSSIBLE  f  211 

simist/  who,  while  hghtly  and  playfully  tilting  at 
me,  manages  to  make  his  gallant  steed  frisk  and 
curvet  all  round,  to  the  discomfiture  of  my  original 
opponents  !  I  have  only  one  fault  to  find  with 
him,  which  he  shares  with  the  famous  knight  in 
'  Ivanhoe ' — that  he  comes  disguised,  and  very 
lugubriously!  In  point  of  fact  he  is  about  as 
much  *a  pessimist'  as  Charles  Dickens.  I  fancy, 
indeed,  that  if  he  deigned  to  lift  his  visor,  the 
world  would  laugh  merrily  in  recognition  of  one 
whose  name  is  a  synonym  for  kindliness  and 
kindly  optimism.  He  challenges  me,  however,  to 
prove  my  case  further,  and,  since  your  insertion  of 
the  challenge  intimates  your  approval,  I  will  join 
issue  with  him  at  once.  Let  me  premise,  however, 
by  saying  that  the  subject  is  one  of  unusual 
delicacy,  and  could  not  be  completed  save  with 
the  addition  of  evidence  necessarily  given  in  camerd, 
not  in  the  columns  of  a  newspaper  ;  nor  would 
even  the  six  columns  asked  for  by  your  corre- 
spondent afford  sufficient  space  for  its  full  and 
absolute  discussion.  One  can  only  select  a  few 
points  out  of  many,  and  leave  all  corroborative 
testimony  to  the  experience  of  our  jury,  your 
readers. 

Of  course  students  of  Modern  Pessimism  know 
very  well  that,  as  a  philosophy ,  it  claims  to  be 
beneficent.  Its  founder,  Schopenhauer,  and  its 
chief  apostle  and  re-creator,  Hartmann,  feeling 
profoundly  for  the  sufferings  of  creatures  emerging 

14—2 


212  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLES 

into  life  and  pain,  have  assured  us  that  the  only- 
comfort  and  joy  of  Humanity,  so  soon  to  perish,  is 
in  acts  of  mutual  service,  mutual  pity,  mutual 
love.  The  bhnd  Will  or  the  blind  Unconscious 
(whichever  name  we  give  it)  flowers  up  to  its  apex 
of  moral  sentiment,  gleams  piteously,  and  dis- 
appears. These  philosophers,  like  all  others,  testify, 
of  course,  to  the  beauty  of  human  aficction  ;  and, 
so  far  as  I  personally  am  concerned,  I  could  as 
easily  find  comfort  in  their  gloomy  Nirwana  as  in 
the  mysterious  Immanence  of  approved  Pantheists 
like  Spinoza.  It  is  not  with  pure  pessimistic 
philosophy,  however,  that  I  have  at  present  to 
deal. 

'  When  Bisliop  Berkeley  said  there  was  no  matter, 
And  proved  it — 'twas  no  matter  what  he  said,' 

and  there  is  nothing  that  Metaphysics  cannot 
establish,  when  we  once  grant  its  premisses.  I 
spoke  of  Pessimism  and  Pessimists  as  they  emerge 
in  Literature,  I  spoke  more  particularly  of  Pessi- 
mistic Realism.  Your  correspondent's  contention 
appears  to  be  that  the  phenomenon  to  which  I 
alluded  is  merely  a  familiar  one,  certain  to  emerge 
from  time  to  time,  and  equally  certain  to  disappear. 
To  support  this  contention,  he  asserts,  truly  enough, 
that  a  certain  class  of  men  have  always  been  cynical 
and  unchivalrous,  just  as  the  majority  of  men  have 
always  been  impure.  Lovelace  and  his  friends, 
he  says,  talked  much  the  same  banalities  as  the 
modern  young  men  about  town.     Quite  true.     But 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE?  213 

just  then,  in  the  person  of  the  inspired  little  printer, 
in  some  respects  the  sanest  and  wisest  soul  of  his 
generation,  rose  the  Knight-errant  of  Literary 
Chivalry.  It  is  the  custom,  as  we  all  know,  to 
sneer  at  Richardson.  While  the  warm  weak  heart  ] 
of  Fielding  awakens  love,  Richardson's  piercing 
intellect  almost  repels  it.  Women,  however,  who 
are  supposed  to  have  no  logic,  recognised  the  great/ 
Logician  of  Morality,  and  cried,  *  This  man  is  our 
champion !  This  man  understands  us — justifies 
us  !'  In  the  story  of  Clarissa  Harlowe — tedious, 
monotonous,  straggling,  bourgeois — the  great  tradi- 
tion of  Literary  Chivalry  was  carried  on,  and  the 
world  had  the  spectacle  of  a  Chaste  Soul,  reaching 
its  fulness  at  that  moment  when  the  martyred 
girl,  with  the  libertine  maundering  at  her  feet 
and  offering  to  make  her  *  an  honest  woman ' 
by  marriage,  turned  quietly  and  proudly  away,  and 
passed  through  the  portals  of  the  tomb.  Almost  \ 
any  English  author,  from  that  moment  to  this,  \ 
would  have  satisfied  himself  and  his  readers  by 
bringing  down  the  curtain  on  the  happy  union  of 
Miss  Harlowe  and  the  tamed,  repentant  Lovelace. 
Good,  honest,  virile  Fielding  would  have  done  it, 
and  chuckled  over  it.  Richardson,  far  wiser,  knew 
that,  horrible  as  is  the  outrage  of  the  body,  still 
more  horrible  may  be  the  outrage  of  the  Soul ; 
that  for  a  Soul  once  violated,  once  disenchanted, 
there  is  no  possible  human  reparation ;  that  for 
Woman  cast  from  her  sphere  of  purity,  bereft  of 


i^' 


y 


214  IS  CHIVALR  V  STILL  POSSIBLE  ? 

i_ 

her  faith  in  Humanity,  the  only  hope  Hes  beyond 
the  shades  of  Death  1 

Which  brings  me  to  the  heart  of  my  sad  argu- 
ment. I  have  mourned  the  decay  of  Chivalry  ;  I 
have  asked  if  its  revival  is  not  possible.  Your 
correspondent — who  loves  Chivalry  as  much  as  I 
do,  who  has  bowed  down  as  I  bow  down  before 
Don  Quixote  and  Colonel  Newcome — says,  firstly, 
that  Chivalry  never  existed  at  all  save  in  a  small 
class  of  the  community.  Yet  it  is  admitted  by  the 
realists  that  Literature  represents  the  spirit  of  its 
age — is,  in  other  words,  the  adumbration  of  the 
noblest  temper  of  the  community  at  large.  What, 
then,  must  have  been  the  temper  of  communities 
which,  crystallizing  in  individual  genius,  produced 
Iphigenia  and  Antigone,  Beatrice  and  Francesca, 
Cordelia  and  Imogen  (to  say  nothing  of  the  whole 
female  galaxy  of  Elizabethan  drama).  Eve  and  the 
Lady  of  Comus,  Clarissa  Harlowe  and  Sophia 
Western,  Beatrice  Cenci  and  the  heroine  of 
Epipsychidion,  Eugenie  Grandet  and  Modest  e 
Mignon,  Lady  Esmond  and  Laura  Pendennis, 
Lizzie  Hexam  and  Little  Nell  ?  I  should  be 
unjust,  moreover,  to  the  lights  under  which  we  live 
if  I  denied  that,  even  now,  this  tradition  of  parity 
survives,  that  now  and  then  Divine  things  come  to 
us,  such  as  I  found  the  other  day  when  I  read  the 
infinitely  piteous  episode  of  Lyndale  in  the  '  Story 
of  an  African  Farm,'  such  as  give  modesty  and 
charm  to  the    ^  girls '   of  Black  and   Besant,    and 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE?  215 

power  to  the  full-blooded  women  of  Thomas  Hardy, 
such  as  ennoble  the  stainless  page  of  Mrs.  Oliphant 
and  brighten  the  gladsome  books  of  Bret  Harte, 
such  as  lend  glory  to  the  maidens  of  Alfred 
Tennyson,  to  the  Madonna-like  young  mothers  of 
Coventry  Patmore,  and  to  the  Shakespearean 
women  of  Robert  Browning.  But,  alas !  most 
of  the  writers  I  have  named  belong  to  the  last 
generation,  and  several  of  them  are  already  voted 
'  old-fashioned.'  The  triumph  now  is  with  the 
realist,  with  the  pessimist,  with  the  young  man  who 
has  never  been  a  child,  who  has  never  dwelt  in 
Bohemia.  Why,  the  whole  attempt  of  my  original 
argument  was  to  draw  a  comparison  between  the 
last  generation  and  the  one  in  which  we  live  ! 

Your  correspondent  asserts,  secondly,  that  after 
all  Chivalry  is  still  flourishing,  and  as  little  in  need 
of  revival  as  ever.  Does  he  deny,  then,  that  within 
the  last  decade,  since  the  apotheosis  of  popular 
science  and  the  spread  of  popular  materialism,  a 
very  great  change  has  taken  place  in  the  moral 
estimate  of  women  ?  Of  their  social  position  I  say 
nothing — that  is  another  matter  ;  but  they,  like 
the  Irish  nation,  have  won  all  that  for  themselves. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  whether  we  fear  their  power 
more,  but  of  whether  we  honour  and  reverence 
them  as  much  ?  The  best  proof  of  such  honour  and 
reverence  would  be  the  condition  of  our  own  morals, 
the  purity  of  our  own  lives.  Are  we,  then,  so  pure  ? 
I  will  turn  away  from  the  revelations  of  the  Divorce 


2i6  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE? 

Court,  from  the  reports  of  the  newspapers,  and  just 
walk  out  once  more  into  the  midnight  streets. 
What  do  I  see  there  ?  Instead  of  the  bold,  painted 
woman's  face  of  twenty  years  ago,  I  see  the  pale, 
thin  face  of  a  child  !  Instead  of  the  coarse,  robust 
young  person  from  the  country,  I  see  the  delicate 
young  person,  who  has  perhaps  been  a  ^  lady '  and 
has  known  luxury.  Let  me  tell,  in  this  connection, 
two  absolutely  true  stories  within  my  own  know- 
ledge. A  little  while  ago  two  pure  young  girls, 
I  daughters  of  a  clergyman,  left  Yorkshire  and  came 
ito  London  deliberately,  out  of  choice,  dispassion- 
ately, to  throw  themselves  on  the  London  streets  ! 
They  did  so,  and  were  swept  away  into  the  great 
jvortex.  Here,  certainly,  we  seem  to  have  a  proof 
in  favour  of  the  man  of  the  world's  argument  that 
there  is  no  ^  seduction';  but  the  exception  is  meant 
to  prove  the  rule.  These  young  girls,  well  educated, 
familiar  with  modern  pessimistic  books,  concluded 
that  the  world  was  impure,  and,  having  lost  all 
vital  belief,  followed  their  despair  to  a  logical  con- 
clusion. My  second  story  is  of  a  young  girl  who, 
when  I  first  met  her,  was  a  beautiful  child  of 
seventeen,  reared  in  luxury,  accomplished  in  music 
and  painting,  the  idol  of  her  home.  She,  too,  be- 
1  came  a  reader  of  the  new  literature  ;  she,  too,  had 
\  become  utterly  without  faith,  either  in  God  or 
human  nature,  when,  a  few  years  later,  she  made 
.  the  acquaintance  of  a  married  man,  an  officer  in  the 
army.     This  man  deliberately  set  himself  to  under- 


/ 
/S  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE?  217 

mine  those  moral  instincts  which  still  kept  her 
personally  pure.  He  convinced  her  that  society 
was  honeycombed  through  and  through  with  liber- 
tinism ;  that  there  were  no  pure  women ;  that, 
since  life  was  transient,  indulgence  of  all  kinds  was 
wise  and  justifiable.  Eager,  like  poor  Lyndale,  to 
know,  she  came  at  last  to  as  piteous  and  terrible  an 
end,  dying  in  utter  despair.  Never  shall  I  forget 
the  contrast  between  the  bright,  happy  girl  I  first 
met,  all  intellectual  ardour,  all  moral  purity,  all 
faith  and  hope,  and  the  poor  heart-broken  woman  \ 
whom,  only  a  few  years  later,  I  saw  lying  on  her 
bed  of  death. 

My  correspondent  thinks  the  world  is  no  worse  ; 
that  Chivalry  is  no  longer  needed.  Let  him  re- 
member, however,  that  a  generation  ago  the  Devil 
lacked  his  one  last  convincing  argument  which  proves 
to  the  weak  and  blind  that  there  is  absolutely  no 
God,  no  hope,  no  succour  beyond  these  voices. 
If  Pessimism  means  anything,  it  means  that. 
Science  corroborates  it.  Experience  seems  to  justify 
it.  So  that,  after  all  is  said  and  done,  we  (^ome  to 
the  final  and  irresistible  conclusion  that  there  is  no 
hope  in  this  world  because  there  is  no  faith  in 
another,  and  that  Schopenhauer  was  right  when  he 
described  Death — i.e.,  annihilation — as  the  great 
and  only  Nirwana.  In  that  case,  of  course,  it  is 
useless  to  trouble  ourselves  about  what  old-fashioned 
people  call  the  Soul.  Let  us  legislate  for  some- 
thing more  substantial. 


2i8  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  ? 

So  the  world  is  no  worse  ? — nay,  hints  your 
correspondent,  it  is  possibly  much  better,  especially 
in  this  particular  point  of  woman's  condition.  How, 
then,  does  he  account  for  the  fact — which  I  sup- 
pose he  will  not  deny — that  the  ranks  of  the 
so-called  '  fallen'  (I  say  the  ^  driven ')  are  now  to  so 
large  an  extent  recruited  from  the  educated  classes, 
from  those  classes  which  are  aware  of  the  culture 
of  the  age  ?  I  speak  within  my  own  knowledge 
when  I  state  that  I  have  personally  found,  among 
the  throngs  who  nightly  haunt  such  places  as  the 
Empire  and  the  Alhambra,  women  whose  refine- 
ment of  manner  and  purity  of  accomplishment 
would  grace  any  drawing-room  ;  faces  which  not  all 
the  fever  of  the  gaslight  could  rob  of  the  beauty 
and  distinction  which  come  of  gentle  blood.  A 
generation  ago  these  types  did  not  exist  on  this 
side  of  the  Channel.  But  now,  as  the  satirist 
sings  : 

*  Instead  of  Greece,  whose  lewd  arts  poisoned  Rome, 
The  harlot  France  infects  our  island  home  !' 

and  the  educated  girl  who  discovers  that  she  has 
been  brought  up  in  a  dead  Faith,  and  turns  her 
early  accomplishment  to  use  in  the  secret  study  of 
detrimental  French  novelists,  soon  loses  the  hallu- 
cinations which  kept  her  pure.  She,  too,  discovers 
that  Divine  sanctions  are  no  longer  needed.  She, 
too,  finds  that  Pessimism  is  the  only  creed 
thoroughly  alive.  Her  father,  possibly,  is  either 
an    open    sceptic    or    a    person   who    still    accepts 


IS  CHI  VALR  V  STILL  POSSIBLE  ?  219 

religion  because  it  is  '  respectable/  Her  brothers, 
perhaps,  are  young  men  about  town,  from  whom 
she  soon  learns  the  argot  of  fast  life.  It  is  a 
horrible  thing  to  say  in  this  connection,  but  I  have 
known  many  instances  of  pure  young  girls  whose 
minds  first  became  polluted  through  the  conversa- 
tion of  their  own  brothers. 

Now,  Chivalry,  as  I  conceive  it,  and  as  I  hope 
and  pray  for  it,  might  do  something  to  remedy 
this  grievous  state  of  things,  on  which  I  have 
touched  but  very  lightly.  But  Chivalry,  unfortu- 
nately, means  Religion — not  necessarily  the  religion 
of  any  creed  or  sect,  but  that  large  faith  in  a 
Divine  Power  conditioning  all  we  think  and  feel  ; 
and  even  that  nebulous  sort  of  religion,  as  we 
know,  is  hard  to  find.  Energetic  Mr.  Frederic 
Harrison,  contemptuous  of  an  anthropomorphic 
God,  ofi*ered  us  his  masters  fetish,  Humanity,  the 
Grand  Eire,  as  a  substitute,  until  quite  lately  aj 
ferocious  Professor,  not  to  be  humbugged  that! 
way,  pulverised  the  Monster,  to  the  general  satis- j 
faction  (see  Professor  Huxley's  diatribe  against , 
Positivism,  passim).  In  all  the  conflict  of  the 
new  discovery  that  the  moon  is  made,  not  of  green 
cheese,  but  of  magnesium,  there  is  not  much  time 
for  reverence  ;  and,  unfortunately,  the  scientists 
are  even  harder  on  Woman  than  the  poets  and 
romancists.      How,  then,  shall  Chivalry  arise  ? 

In  one  way  only.      Through  the  physical  purifica- 
tion of  men.      I  am  certainly  not  for  turning  the 


220  IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  1 

world  into  a  moral  seminary,  for  eliminating  from 
life  that  Passion  which  alone,  perhaps,  lifts  it 
towards  divinity.  But  the  man  who  goes  out  into 
the  market-place  to  huy  the  body  or  the  soul  of  a 
woman  is  a  leper,  and  as  such  he  should  be  treated. 
Put  a  label  on  his  breast,  put  a  clapper  into  his 
hand,  that  all  the  world  may  know  he  is  '  unclean.' 
My  entire  argument  is  that  Man  is  the  sinner  here, 
and  that  Woman  is  the  martyr.  I  know  well  how 
my  good  physician  and  physiologist,  Mr.  Worldly 
Wiseman,  will  smile  at  my  logic.  From  time 
immemorial  the  Master  has  usurped  the  privileges 
of  sensuality,  while  the  Slave  has  been  forced  to 
acquiesce.  Only  when  the  master  has  become  a 
knight-errant,  and  has  said  to  his  ideal,  *  Be  pure, 
and  I  will  emulate,  so  far  as  my  coarser  nature 
may,  your  purity  !  Be  good,  and  I  will  uphold 
your  goodness  before  the  world  !'  then,  and  only 
then,  has  Woman  become  glorified — no  longer  a 
Martyr,  but  a  Madonna. 

I  have  hinted  pretty  broadly  at  certain  social 
phenomena  which  I  allege  to  be  taking  place  in  our 
midst.  Thousands  of  your  readers,  if  they  cared 
to  speak,  could,  I  feel  sure,  corroborate  me  on  such 
points  as  the  decay  of  self-respect  in  women  owing 
to  male  contamination,  and  as  the  want  of  Chivalry 
or  purity  in  the  young  men  of  their  homes.  With 
what  your  correspondent  says  on  the  abominations 
and  absurdities  of  Naturalism  I  thoroughly  agree  ; 
but  I   open  my  eyes  in  wonder  when  I  find  him 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE  1  221 

classing  Byron  among  the  discoverers  '  of  the 
great  fact  that  Nature  consists  only  of  the  hideous/ 
Byron  was  a  romanticist  pure  and  simple.  He 
discovered  that  the  world  and  society  were  full  of 
shams,  and  he  turned  in  gloomy  pride  to  Nature, 
to  the  mountains  and  the  sea.  Bitter  things  said 
about  mankind,  sarcastic  things  said  about  the  sex, 
do  not  make  a  Pessimist — in  fact.  Poetry  and 
Pessimism  are  antagonistic  terms.  Byron's  idea 
of  Woman  was  not,  perhaps,  the  highest,  but  it 
was  a  high  one,  nevertheless,  and  I  only  wish  we 
had  a  few  of  his  women  now.  To  put  the  creator 
of  Haidee  in  the  same  pillory  as  the  author  of 
^  La  Curee  '  seems  rough-and-ready  justice  indeed  ! 
Byron,  with  all  his  thoughts,  was  a  Man,  and  when 
he  revolted  against  what  Mr.  Morley  justly  calls 
*  the  piggish  virtues  of  the  Georges,'  Nature  re- 
volted with  him  and  proclaimed  him  right.  Had 
he  lived  a  little  longer,  he  would  have  become, 
perhaps,  the  noblest  knight-errant  that  modern 
Chivalry  has  seen. 

I  am,  etc., 

Robert  Buchanan. 

Note  on  the  Preceding. — My  question,  'Is 
Chivalry  still  possible  V  elicited,  in  addition  to  the 
letters  of  Mrs.  Linton,  a  vast  amount  of  cor- 
respondence, occupying  the  columns  of  the  Daily 
Tdegrajyii  for  some  weeks.  As  usual,  the  dis- 
cussion ended  on  the  level  to  which  all  high  things 


222  IS     CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLE! 

fall  in  this  country — that  of  the  comic  paper ;  and 
there  the  question  arrived  at  its  reductio  ad  ab- 
surdum,  whether  men  who  travelled  in  omnibuses 
were  still  sufficiently  chivalrous  to  get  outside  to 
oblige  a  lady  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  it 
was  found  impossible,  in  the  columns  of  a  daily 
journal,  to  touch  the  quick  of  the  matter,  which 
chiefly  concerned  Prostitution,  classed  by  me  with 
War,  as  one  of  the  two  hideous  Sphynxes  of  modern 
civilization. 

I  may  remark  in  this  contention  that  my  state- 
ments concerning  the  change  of  type  among  fallen 
women,  concerning  the  spread  of  social  disease  to 
the  higher  classes  of  society,  were  corroborated  by 
innumerable  private  correspondents,  as  well  as  by  a 
letter  of  emphatic  assent  from  the  present  Secretary 
of  the  Lock  Hospital. 

By  far  the  most  important  published  communica- 
tions were  the  letters  from  the  pen  of  Mrs.  Lynn 
Linton,  conveying  as  they  did  the  anti-sentiment 
of  that  large  class  of  women  which  is  moved  alike 
by  the  scientific  spirit  and  the  puritanical  bias — in 
other  words,  by  a  desire  to  dogmatize  in  matters  of 
feeling,  and  to  be  severe  on  the  weaknesses  of 
human  nature.  I  do  not  dispute  for  a  moment 
that  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton  s  ideal  of  womanhood  is  a 
high  one  ;  but  it  is  an  ideal  based  quite  uncon- 
sciously on  the  British  ideal  of  commercial  virtue. 
Mrs.  Linton  sees  in  Woman  only  the  type  of 
chastity  and  maternity  ;  I  see  in  her  the  partner 


IS  CHIVALRY  STILL  POSSIBLES  223 

of  Man's  passion  and  Man's  power.  She  sees  a 
domestic  machine  ;  I  see  an  ever-present  inspira- 
tion. She  elevates  conventional  Chastity  as  the 
highest  of  female  virtues  ;  I  see  in  it  only  the 
unchastity  of  English  legislation.  She  would  limit 
the  sphere  of  woman's  activity  and  energy  ;  I 
would  enlarge  that  sphere  indefinitely.  She  has 
spoken  of  the  inexorable  Laws  of  Human  Nature, 
and  indirectly  has  drawn  from  these  laws  an  in- 
ference that  Prostitution  is  a  necessary  evil  ;  I,  on 
the  other  hand,  have  affirmed  that  there  are  no 
laws  to  turn  man  from  a  rational  being  into  a 
beast  of  the  field,  and  have  asserted  that  spurious 
Chastity,  the  puritanical  bias  in  ethics  and  in 
legislation,  is  sacrificing  the  rights  of  one  class  of 
human  beings  to  the  vices  of  another.  We  are 
trying  to  appease  the  angry  gods  by  a  holocaust  of 
helpless  women.  That  holocaust  would  be  recog- 
nised as  what  it  is,  an  enormity,  if  women  were 
made  more  free  and  men  became  more  pure.  The 
Passion  of  Love  is  not  of  necessity,  as  puritans 
affirm,  an  unclean  passion.  It  is  the  breath  of 
Heaven  which  sweetens  and  purifies  every  coarse 
necessity  of  Earth. 


IMPEKIAL    COCKNEYDOM. 


15 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

A    REJOINDER    TO    CRITICS. 

For  an  article  by  the  writer  who  still  lives,  I  am 
glad  to  find,  to  subscribe  himself  ^  A.  K.  H.  B.,' 
'  On  certain  Terms  of  Opprobrium '  would  be  a 
felicitous  title.  Perhaps  the  most  notorious 
manufacturer  of  such  terms  was  Carlyle,  following 
close  in  the  wake  of  Goethe  ;  but  the  late  Mr. 
Arnold  ran  him  very  hard,  inventing  many  catch- 
words and  nicknames  which  have  passed  into  the 
current  vocabulary  of  journalism.  For  example, 
everyone  who  did  not  agree  with  Mr.  Arnold,  or 
who  called  a  spade  a  spade,  was  a  '  Philistine,' 
and  everyone  who  emulated  him  in  the  suppression 
of  vitality  possessed  '  sweetness  and  light.'  '  An- 
thropomorphism '  is  another  epithet  much  in  vogue 
with  those  writers  who  dislike  the  idea  of  a  per- 
sonal God  ;  it  was  invented  for  us,  I  fancy,  by 
Professor  Tyndall.  Well,  an  epithet,  be  it  oppro- 
brious or  complimentary,  is  to  be  valued  in  pro- 
portion to  its  aptness  and  suitably.  Of  course, 
such  terms  are  coarse  and  trivial  enough,  and  need 

15—2 


228  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

abundant  qualification.  Most  living  writers  have 
at  one  time  and  another,  when  uttering  some 
disagreeable  truth,  been  called  '  Philistines.'  Some 
of  them,  too,  have  been  called  *  Provincial ' — a 
term  which  has  its  antithesis  in  the  other  magni- 
ficent term  '  Cockney,'  invented  by  Professor 
Wilson,  but  applied  with  singular  ineptitude  to 
the  school  of  Keats  and  Leigh  Hunt.  In  the 
present  article  I  purpose  to  appropriate  this  term, 
and  for  the  first  time,  1  believe,  to  apply  it 
properly.  For,  as  I  have  suggested,  a  term  or  a 
nickname,  to  possess  any  force  and  durability,  must 
be  felicitous.  When  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  in  view  of 
certain  expressions  in  a  recent  article,  calls  me 
'  provincial,'  the  epithet  has  meaning.  I  am  very 
provincial,  as  I  purpose  to  show,  while  showing, 
at  the  same  time,  that  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  though 
Scottish  by  birth,  is  a  Cockney  of  Cockneys. 

For  to  be  a  Cockney,  it  is  not  after  all  necessary 
to  be  born  within  the  sound  of  Bow  Bells  ;  the  word 
implies,  not  a  nationality,  but  a  temperament,  an 
environment,  and  a  habit  of  mind.  Charles  Lamb 
was  a  Cockney  in  the  best  and  finest  sense  of  the 
word  ;  Hazlitt  and  Gifford  were  Cockneys  in  its 
worst  and  earthiest  sense.  The  true  Cockney,  like 
the  true  Parisian,  regards  his  own  City  as  the 
Centre  of  the  Universe  ;  his  own  outlook  as  the 
one  outlook  on  life  and  literature  ;  his  own  taste 
as  the  only  taste  to  appreciate  what  is  pleasant 
and    what    is    beautiful ;    his    own    little    pool    of 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  229 

thought  and  feeling  as  the  one  Ocean  where  a  man- 
tadpole  can  comfortably  push  about.  There  has 
never  been  a  great  Cockney,  but  there  have  been 
shrewd  and  sagacious  and  delightful  ones  ;  the 
type  rises  as  high  as  Ben  Jonson  and  sinks  as 
low  as  '  Mr.  Gigadibs.'  The  true  '  Provincial,'  on 
the  other  hand,  is  considerably  sceptical  as  to 
the  centralization  of  all  thought  and  feeling,  all 
brilliance  and  all  activity,  in  any  particular  city, 
although,  if  he  sinks  very  low,  he  may  rather 
incline  to  the  opinion  that  the  centralization  should 
take  place  in  Birmingham,  or  Glasgow,  or  Stoke 
Pogis,  or  Kilmarnock.  He  has  no  particular  bias 
towards  any  form  of  life  or  literature.  For  the 
narrowness  of  personal  taste  he  substitutes  the 
breadth  of  ideal  principles,  and  is  guided  by  those 
principles.  He  moves  about  this  merry  England, 
about  the  waters  of  the  world,  with  a  full  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  insignificance,  yet  with  no 
disposition  to  take  minnows  and  tadpoles  for 
leviathans  or  even  bottle-nosed  whales.  He,  in  a 
word,  is  *  free.'  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  Words- 
worth and  Byron,  were  glorified  provincials.  In 
the  great  periods  of  literature  the  men  of  light 
and  leading  have  been  Provincials  always.  In  the 
little  periods,  e.g.,  those  of  the  Georges  and 
Queen  Anne,  the  victorious  writers  have  gene- 
rally been  Cockney  to  the  marrow.  But  Richard- 
son was  a  true  Provincial,  and  so,  thank  heaven, 
was  Harry  Fielding. 


230  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

Are  we  getting  near  to  a  definition?  If  not, 
we  may  get  quite  close  to  it  as  we  go  on,  and 
furnish  contemporary  illustrations.  It  is,  by  the 
way,  a  very  certain  sign  of  provincialism  to  say 
severe  things  of  any  contemporary,  more  particu- 
larly if  he  is  a  Cockney.  The  Cockney  way,  the 
way  of  *  sweetness  and  light,'  is  to  take  one's  stand 
apart,  to  say  nothing  personal,  but  to  depreciate 
by  complacent  innuendoes,  and  at  any  rate,  if 
fighting  has  to  be  done,  to  do  it  in  kid  gloves. 
I  can  imagine  nothing  in  literature  more  trivial 
and  more  spiteful  than  the  late  Mr.  Arnold's 
comments  on  his  contemporaries — but  Mr.  Arnold 
was  jejune,  and  talked  so  much  of  ^  culture  '  that 
many  who  read  him  thought  him  sweet  instead  of 
bitter.  Then,  says  the  Cockney,  if  you  must 
attack,  instead  of  taking  your  cakes  and  ale  com- 
fortably, for  Heaven's  sake  attack  only  Things  in 
General,  Things  which  are  helpless  and  incapable 
of  self-defence  ;  it  is  very  bad  taste  indeed  to  do 
as  Byron  and  Shelley  did,  and  *  name '  your 
Southeys  and  Castlereaghs.  This,  however,  with 
a  reservation.  If  it  is  merely  a  *  provincial '  you 
have  to  deal  with,  call  him  what  names  you  like. 
Call  him,  as  they  called  Coleridge,  a  genius 
manque.  Call  him,  as  they  called  Wordsworth, 
a  '  driveller,'  a  '  Lakist.'  Call  him,  as  they  called 
Christopher  North,  *  that  damn'd  Scotchman  !' 
The  whole  vocabulary  is  at  your  service.  Call 
him,    if  at   a    loss  for  an   adjective,    a    scrofulous 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM,  2^1 


Scotch,  or  Irish,  or  Manx  poet.  And  then,  should 
the  poor  Provincial,  irritated  by  your  ill-treatment 
of  him,  retaliate  by  calling  you  a  fleshly  poet,  or 
a  society  journalist,  or  a  chirpy  smoking-room 
critic,  or  a  Bank-Holiday  young  man,  you  are 
still  free  to  hold  up  your  hands  and  exclaim, 
*  How  provincial  !  how  ill-bred  !  how  barbarous  T 
Your  strong  point  is  that  the  world  in  general  still 
confounds  the  Cockney  with  the  Londoner,  and 
when  the  Cockney  utters  his  fiat,  is  ready  to  accept 
it  as  representative  of  the  great  Centre  of  Opinion.^ 
You  are  localized  for  the  time  being,  you  build 
your  little  nest,  in  the  Temple  of  all  the  Sciences 
and  all  the  Arts,  London ;  and  so,  if  you  are 
noisy  enough,  the  sound  you  make  may  seem, 
not  the  caw  of  the  jackdaw,  but  the  voice  of  the 
Oracle. 

Let  us  understand,  clearly,  however,  what  we 
mean  by  Cockneydom.  It  by  no  means  follows 
that  a  Londoner  is  necessarily  a  Cockney.      Your 

*  On  the  other  side  of  the  Channel  it  is  still  the  highest 
possible  compliment  to  call  a  man  or  an  author  *  a  true  Parisian 
of  the  Parisians.'  Admiration  even  went  so  far  as  to  apply  the 
compliment  to  Balzac  and  (mirabUe  dictuf)  Victor  Hugo.  But 
though  Hugo  himself  said  that  Paris  was  France,  and  France 
was  the  centre  of  the  Universe,  every  line  he  wrote  under  inspi- 
ration rebuked  the  absurdity.  We  are  learning  just  now  what 
to  be  a  *  true  Parisian '  means  in  literature  ;  it  means  simply  to 
be  a  houlevardier.  A  similar  lesson  is  being  taught  us,  here  in 
England,  as  to  the  true  meaning  of  the  word  *  Cockney,'  though 
Cockneydom,  of  course,  works  by  stealth  towards  imperialization, 
instead  of  vaunting  it  grandiloquently. 


232  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 


true  Londoner,  like  your  true  American,  is  cos- 
mopolitan ;  he  is  fortunately  very  numerous, 
and  may  still  be  found  writing  books,  painting 
pictures,  editing  newspapers.  In  many  cases, 
indeed,  he  is  merely  a  transplanted  provincial ; 
in  journalism,  especially,  the  strength,  the  vigour 
and  intellectual  capacity  is  constantly  supplied 
from  the  provinces ;  and  because  journalists  are 
for  the  most  part  not  Cockneys,  but  liberal 
men  of  the  world,  some  of  our  criticism  is  broad, 
generous  and  fair.  Cockneydom  is  to  Cosmopo- 
litanism what  the  Gironde  was  to  Jacobinism.  Its 
philosophy  is  epicurean,  its  humour  is  persiflage, 
its  poetry  is  vers  de  societe,  and  its  wisdom  is  the 
wisdom  of  the  clubs.  Within  its  own  little  sphere 
it  is  triumphant,  because  it  suits  well  the  tempera- 
ment of  men  thoughtless  by  disposition  and  busy 
in  occupation.  It  has  its  libraries,  its  theatres,  its 
journals.  It  exchanges  for  a  provincial  worship  of 
Truth  and  Beauty,  a  lightsome  admiration  for  the 
pretty,  the  elegant,  the  comme  il  faut.  It  quite 
objects  to  take  life  seriously.  It  regards  Thought 
itself  as  an  almost  disturbing  influence.  It  occupies 
itself  with  the  manners  of  accomplished  men  and 
nuances  of  well-dressed  women.  A  glorified 
Cockney  is  a  sort  of  literary  or  artistic  '  Buck ' 
of  the  period,  exhibiting  himself  in  the  salon  or  the 
club,  showing  to  ordinary  people  the  pink  of  literary 
manners,  and  accepting  with  easy  complacence  life 
as  it  really  is,  in  London  clubs.      He  has  seen  the 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  233 


sea  at  Scarborough  and  Margate,  and  he  has  seen 
the  mountains  from  the  door  of  an  hotel  in 
Switzerland.  As  the  degenerate  Roman  copied 
the  elegancies  of  moribund  Greece,  the  Cockney 
frequently  apes  the  affectations  of  honeycombed 
France.  He  has  the  light  literature  of  Paris  at 
his  fingers'  ends. 

And  what  has  this  glorified  being  to  tell  us  ? 
About  manners,  much ;  about  those  questions 
which  determine  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of 
aspiring  men,  nothing.  His  inclinations  are  light- 
some and  practical,  and  his  injunction  upon  us 
is  that,  since  life  and  religion  and  philosophy  are 
all  a  muddle,  it  is  best  to  exist  comfortably,  to 
ask  no  more  of  Providence  than  a  good  dinner, 
a  cheerful  friend,  a  pleasant,  well-printed  book, 
a  picture  or  two,  a  newspaper,  and  a  charming 
woman  to  flirt  with  upon  occasion.  His  motto  is 
laissez  aller.  Pessimist  and  epicurean  in  one,  he 
regards  all  conduct  that  is  not  ill-bred  with 
equal  sympathy ;  with  a  '  one  thing  is  as  good 
as  another  '  sort  of  criticism,  forbearing  in  appear- 
ance if  fundamentally  heartless.  Great  deeds  and 
great  thoughts  have  no  real  interest  for  him,  but 
he  has  a  cultivated  appreciation  of  them  on  the 
aesthetic  side.  '  For  heaven's  sake,'  he  says  to  us, 
'  be  calm  1  Things  may  be  very  bad  indeed,  society 
may  be  rotten  to  the  core,  London  may  be  a 
warren  of  the  poor  and  wretched,  but  all  this 
is  really  not  worth  troubling  about ;  it  will  so  soon 


234  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 


be  over  !  To  excite  yourself  over  the  loss  of  a 
Religion  is  like  crying  childishly  over  the  breaking 
of  a  toy.  To  protest  against  public  nuisances  is 
to  make  yourself  a  nuisance.  The  most  disinter- 
ested Man  that  ever  lived,  the  Man  who  your 
teachers  tell  you  was  Divine,  has  been  a  puritanical 
Bore  for  nearly  two  thousand  years,  and  his 
preaching  and  prosing  has  all  come  to — nothing ! 
You  can  t  make  the  world  better.  You  can't  keep 
the  monkey-blood  out  of  humanity.  You  can, 
however,  *'  sit  apart,  holding  no  form  of  creed, 
but  contemplating  all."  You  can  always  find 
a  piano,  or  a  flower,  or  a  set  of  verses,  or  a  bit 
of  scandal,  or  a  pretty  woman  ;  all  of  which  make 
life  gladsome.  And  when  it  is  all  over,  when  the 
lute  is  unstrung  and  the  golden  bowl  is  broken, 
you  can  at  least  go  comfortably  to  sleep  !' 

I  am  obliged,  in  this  connection,  to  proclaim  my 
belief  that  the  man  who,  more  than  anyone  who 
ever  lived,  wrote  most  about  the  Metropolis,  was 
not  a  Cockney.  The  cheeriest  of  all  humourists, 
Charles  Dickens,  whom  the  true  Cockney  is  so 
fond  of  quoting  and  yet  underrating,  was  awfully 
and  hopelessly  provincial,  and  was  frequently 
reproached  for  the  fact  by  the  Saturday  Review, 
An  idealist  and  a  dreamer,  he  found  in  this  great 
City,  not  Cockneydom,  but  Fairyland,  and  he  was, 
never  tired  of  wondering  at  its  piteous  oddity  and 
delightful  quiddity.  Now  a  Cockney  sees  nothing 
of  all  this,  though  it  is  all  so  near  to  him.      Words- 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  235 

worth  had  to  come  up  from  Cumberland,  at  the 
very  time  when  every  dique  and  coterie  voted  him 
an  utter  failure,  and  when  every  Cockney  literary 
man  professed  total  ignorance  of  and  contempt  for 
his  works,  before  the  world  could  realize  the  beauty 
and  solemnity  of  the  Dawn  seen  from  Westminster 
Bridge  : 

*  Dear  Lord,  the  very  houses  seem  asleep, 
And  all  that  Mighty  Heart  is  lying  still  !* 

That  Mighty  Heart !  which  sends  no  pulsation 
whatever  through  the  veins  of  the  contingent 
poetaster.  Why,  it  required  even  a  poor  Glasgow 
poet,  whom  the  Cockneys  first  welcomed  and  then 
stoned  and  killed,  to  produce  even  the  fine  lines — 
describing  London  as  : 

*  The  terrible  City,  whose  neglect  is  Death, 
Whose  smile  is  Fame  !' 

That  Mighty  Heart!  The  Terrible  City! 
How  felicitous,  and  yet  how  provincial  !  No 
Cockney  has  ever  yet  expressed  in  literature  the 
mystery  and  the  awfulness  of  this  London  in  the 
shallows  of  which  he  sports.  A  fine  old  Cockney 
once  attempted  it,  and  was  told  by  his  friends  that 
he  was  a  great  poet  ;  and  indeed  if  all  Cockneys 
were  like  that  honest,  purblind,  pertinacious, 
prosaist,  Samuel  Johnson,  how  we  should  adore 
the  breed  !  But  in  those  days  a  Cockney  had  not 
discovered  that  '  there  is  no  God,'  and  that  Life 
means   comfortableness   and    prettiness.       He    had 


236  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

only  begun  by  discovering  that  the  world  is  Fleet 
Street,  and  that  it  is  merry  to  hear  the  chimes  at 
midnight.  The  rest  has  followed  in  the  usual  way 
of  Evolution. 

The  great  Cockney  organ  of  opinion  is  still  the 
Quarterly  Review.  Many  years  ago  the  standard 
of  revolt  was  raised  in  Edinburgh  by  the  Whigs, 
and  the  Edinburgh  Revieiv  was  started  ;  but  a  very 
short  time  sufficed  to  show  that  this  was,  after  all, 
a  Cockney  organ  too.  GifFord  and  Jeffrey  were 
both  arrant  Cockneys.  They  cackled  endless 
praises  to  Byron  because  he  was  a  lord,  but  there 
was  not  a  stainless  reputation,  not  one  flower  of 
original  genius,  they  did  not  pollute  and  try  to 
kill.  In  their  dotage,  the  good  old  Quarterlies, 
once  the  watchmen  of  our  literature,  survive  still, 
but  amid  universal  neglect  or  derision,  as  things 
far  too  slow  for  the  times.  Poor  old  Dogberry 
and  Verges  1  Lanthorn  and  clapper  in  hand  they 
pop  out  of  their  pigeon-boxes,  and  months  after 
the  henroost  is  robbed  and  the  house  burned  down, 
utter  their  wheezy  cries  of  ^  Fox  '  or  '  Fire.'  And 
they  are  still  Cockney  to  the  marrow  ;  still  cheer- 
fully unconscious  that  the  world  is  in  earnest,  still 
ready  to  aim  their  paralytic  blows  at  '  Deformed  ' 
and  other  malefactors.  Only  yesterday,  Dogberry 
told  us  that  Mr.  John  Morley  was  the  inheritor 
of  the  character  and  temperament  of — Rousseau  ! 
The  good  old  man  had  somehow  muddled  Rousseau 
with  '  Deformed,'  and  was  quite  unconscious  that 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  237 

he  was  comparing  an  inspired  Deist,  the  one  writer 
who  kept  the  soul  of  men  aflame  when  Rationalism 
had  almost  blown  it  out,  with  a  belated  Hume 
whose  mind  had  been  nurtured  on  the  gospel  of 
the  Hall  of  Science,  who  printed  God  with  a  small 
'  g,'  and  who  had  descended  from  the  azure  of  the 
Savoyard  Vicars  prayer  into  the  atmosphere  of 
stump  oratory.  Only  the  other  day,  the  same 
asthmatic  authority  told  us  that  Lord  Tennyson 
was  '  no  poet.' 

For  Cockneydom  to  speak  in  the  name  of 
London,  then,  is  a  preposterous  impertinence. 
The  chirp  of  the  sparrows  which  nest  in  the  ear 
of  a  stone  Colossus  is  not  likely  to  be  mistaken 
for  the  voice  of  the  giant.  Fortunately  for  free 
thought,  for  literature,  for  art,  for  science,  London 
remains  cosmopolitan.  The  great  journals,  with 
notorious  exceptions,  are  broad  and  eclectic.  The 
best  writers  for  the  press  are  men  of  the  world, 
many-sided,  many-minded,  free  from  the  prejudices 
of  clique  or  class.  The  most  popular  actor  of  the 
day,  Mr.  Irving,  is  so  sublimely  ^  provincial '  as  to 
believe,  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  Cockneydom  which 
never  ceases  to  decry  him,  in  the  ideal  side  of  the 
Drama.  Only  very  low  down  in  the  intellectual 
scale  is  heard  the  clamour  of  the  cliques,  the  voice 
of  eager  Cockneydom. 

If  this  article  were  political  I  might  proceed  to 
point  out  the  Cockney  statesman  and  the  Cockney 
publicist.      My  readers,  however,  know  them  well, 


238  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

and  so  I  need  not  particularize,  save  to  say  that 
they  have  more  than  once  imperilled  the  honour 
and  threatened  the  ruin  of  their  country.  A 
thoroughly  provincial  politician,  however,  may  be 
quoted  in  the  form  of  the  late  Mr.  Bright,  who 
was  abused  throughout  his  whole  career  for  his 
anti-Cockney  proclivities,  who  never  feared  to  speak 
his  mind,  and  who  was  guided  from  first  to  last 
by  solid  principles.  It  may  be  remarked  here, 
in  this  connection,  that  on  great  public  questions 
involving  the  progress  of  humanity  and  the  rights 
of  minorities,  Cockneydom  is  nearly  always  on  the 
wrong  side,  and  generally  the  last  to  be  converted. 
It  was  a  great  Cockney  organ,  the  Times,  which 
steadily  upheld  the  South  almost  to  the  bitter  end, 
when  all  sane  men  saw  the  inevitable  issue  of  the 
conflict  between  Nationality  and  barbaric  Revolt 
in  the  United  States  of  America.  It  was  the 
same  organ  which,  to  damage  a  forlorn  cause  and 
destroy  a  martyred  Nation,  instituted  an  infamous 
prosecution  against  the  Perseus  of  Ireland,  Parnell. 
In  Cockneydom  alone  the  god  St.  Jingo  has  found 
idolaters.  Mere  provincials  have  passed  him  by 
with  contempt  or  indifference,  and  turned  from  the 
clash  of  cymbals  and  the  battle-cry  of  eunuchs  to 
the  teachings  of  wisdom  and  the  humanitarian 
sentiment  of  virile  men. 

Yet  Cockneydom,  not  content  with  metropolitan 
or  even  national  triumphs,  hungers  to  become 
imperial,  to  possess,  like  Great  Britain,  an  Empire 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  239 

on  which  the  sun  never  sets.  For  example,  so  far 
as  current  literature  is  concerned,  its  missionaries 
have  completely  converted,  while  its  central  powers 
have  complacently  annexed,  the  distant  city  of 
Boston.  Mr.  Henry  James  has  become  a  Cock- 
ney. So  has  Mr.  Howells,  in  spite  of  his  contempt 
for  Dickens.  Through  the  cult  of  Cockney- 
dom,  spreading  through  mysterious  channels  of 
journalism,  people  yonder  are  beginning  to  think 
dubiously  about  those  good  old  Puritan  fathers, 
Whittier,  Emerson,  and  Longfellow,  and  to 
welcome  with  complacence  the  dii  minores  of  the 
Savile  Club.  In  New  York,  and  as  far  away  as 
Chicago,  Cockneydom  spreads  its  propaganda  ;  so 
effectually,  indeed,  that  young  men  have  given  no 
ear  to  the  '  barbaric  yawp  '  of  Whitman,  know  not 
even  the  name  of  Hermann  Melville,^  and  have 
found  little  fascination  in  the  Idylls  of  Dudley 
Warner  or  Charles  Warren  Stoddard.  Of  course, 
I  know  Americans  too  well  to  believe  that  the 
Gospel  according  to  Cockneydom,  expressed  in  easy 
essay  ism  and  patter- versification,  will  ever  do  for 
them.      It  fills  certain  of  their  magazines,  but  to 

*  When  I  went  to  America  my  very  first  inquiry  was  concern- 
ing the  author  of  '  Typee,'  '  Omoo,'  and  *  The  White  Whale.' 
There  was  some  sHght  evidence  that  he  was  *  alive,'  and  I  heard 
from  Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman,  who  seemed  much  astonished  at  my 
interest  in  the  subject,  that  Melville  was  dwelling  *  somewhere  in 
New  York,'  having  resolved,  on  account  of  the  public  neglect  of 
his  works,  never  to  write  another  line.  Conceive  this  Titan 
silenced,  and  the  bookstalls  flooded  with  the  illustrated  magazines. 


240  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM, 

these,    in   reality,  they   pay   no   serious   attention 

Omnivorous  readers,  they  devour  everything  ;  free 

eosmopoUtans,  they  accept  in  a  friendly  way  even 

Cockney  missionaries  ;  but  as  the    future    masters 

of  the  world,  they  are  certain  never  to  be  annexed 

en    masse.        Nearer     home,     at     Paris,     imperial 

Cockneydom  is  likely  to  be  more  successful.     Very 

busy  there  has  been  the  good  Apostle,  James,  and 

we  find  the  Cockneys  of  Paris  dedicating  books  to 

him  and  writing  articles  about  Cockneydom  in  the 

Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,      My  acquaintance   with 

the  missionary  reports  of  the  new  religion  is  not 

intimate  enough  to  enable  me  to  say  whether  any 

Cockneys   have    been    converted    in    Tasmania    or 

New  South  Wales  ;  but  I  met  a  Parsee  the  other 

day  who  confided  to  me  his  belief  that  all  religions 

except  Epicureanism  were  equally  nonsensical,  and 

that  the  greatest  of  English  poets  was  Mr.  Austin 

Dobson.^ 

My  article  on  the  Modern  Young  Man  as  Critic 

has  at  least  done    something.      It  has  drawn  Mr. 

Andrew  Lang,  a  very  typical  Cockney,  from  the 

obscurity  of  his  club  and  the  anonymous  sanctities 

of  his  daily  and  weekly  journals.      Gently  and  not 

ill-naturedly,  calmly  and  not  angrily,  he  chides  me 

(in  the  St.  James  s   Gazette)  for  '  discourtesy,'  for 

*  Here  followed  in  the  original  article  a  description  of  Mr. 
Lang's  lecturing  visit  to  Scotland,  in  which,  by  following  certain 
newspaper  reports  and  comments,  I  appear  to  have  exaggerated 
or  mistaken  Mr.  Lang's  utterances.  I  therefore  suppress  the 
passage. 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  241 

(in  House  of  Commons  fashion)  *  naming '  parti- 
cular offenders.  He  knows — no  man  knows  better 
— that  the  covert  sneer,  the  lifted  shoulder,  the 
smug  innuendo,  the  depreciating  smile,  are  far  morei 
a  la  mode  than  plain  speaking  and  rushing  into' 
print.  The  former,  however,  has  never  been  my 
method  of  warfare  ;  I  leave  it  to  the  cheery  pessi-  \ 
mists,  and  the  prophets  of  modern  Nepotism.  I 
call  a  spade  a  spade  with  the  Philistines,  and  a 
Cockney  a  Cockney  with  the  provincials.  For  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang  personally  I  have  no  little  respect. 
He  is  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar,  and  in  certain 
moments,  when  he  forgets  his  newspaper  and  his 
club,  a  poet.  I  have  still  ringing  in  my  ears 
certain  lines  of  his  about  the  ^  Iliad '  and  the 
'  Odyssey ' — lines  full  of  the  swing  of  the  early 
periods  of  literature.  Yet  I  am  going  to  arraign 
him  on  the  very  score  of  his  natural  abilities  and 
literary  gifts.  '  Sir,'  I  say  to  him,  after  the 
manner  of  a  certain  famous  justice  of  the  peace, 
*  you  are  clever,  well-educated,  able-bodied,  intel- 
lectual, instead  of  which  you  go  about  disguised  as 
a  Cockney.'  I  blame  him  not,  as  others  have 
blamed  him,  for  now  and  then  showing  the  courage 
of  his  opinions.  I  am  with  him  even  when  he 
vindicates  the  '  imagination  '  of  Mr.  Rider  Haggard, 
and  holds  that  one  gleam  of  creative  power  atones 
for  a  host  of  small  technical  imperfections.  Never, 
in  my  wildest  moments,  should  I  condemn  him  for 
his   occasional   courage.      My  charge   against  him, 

16 


242  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

of  course,  would  rather  convict  him  of  consti- 
tutional hterary  cowardice,  of  chronic  anxiety  to 
keep  out  of  brawls  and  take  things  '  easy,'  of  urbane 
freedom  from  anything  like  real  enthusiasm — in  a 
word,  of  a  desire,  at  the  hazard  of  all  disingenuous 
suppressions,  to  *  get  comfortably  along/  Even  now, 
I  apologize  with  all  my  heart  for  disturbing  him  in 
his  pet  studies  of  linguistic  '  origins '  and  the 
manners  of  primeval  Man.  But  he  is  a  journalist 
as  well  as  a  scholar,  a  clubman  as  well  as  a  student, 
and  in  a  moment  of  distraction  he  has  put  on  his 
*  war-paint '  and  fingered  his  tomahawk.  ^  Is  this 
a  free  fight  ?'  asked  the  pugnacious  American. 
Quite  free  ;  and  it  is  indeed  a  pleasure  to  find  that 
Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  not  content  with  indulging  in 
cynical  ^  asides '  in  the  Daily  News  and  elsewhere, 
has  stepped  out,  armed  at  all  points,  to  join  the 
fray.  He,  above  all  men,  was  the  one  we  of  the 
opposite  faction  wished  to  meet.  To  attack  him 
without  some  personal  provocation,  I,  for  one,  had 
hardly  the  heart,  for  despite  his  literary  offences  he 
has  often  been  kindly  to  a  fault.  Now  that  he 
himself  has  voluntarily  come  forward,  there  can  be 
no  harm  (and  I  am  sure  there  will  be  no  bitter- 
ness) in  touching  on  certain  matters  in  which  he 
has  urgent  personal  concern. 

But  before  I  join  issue  with  Mr.  Lang  on  these 
matters,  let  me  refer  to  one  or  two  points  of  his 
criticism  of  my  article.  I  may  pass  on  one  side 
Ms  suggestion  that  the  same  charge  as  mine  was 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  243 

brought  against  the  young  men  of  the  last  genera- 
tion ;  that  is  a  suggestion  easily  met  by  a  reference 
to  the  Hterature  of  the  eigh teen-sixties.  His  first 
serious  assumption  is  that  I  ought  not  to  have 
'  mentioned  individuals/  or  have  '  called  them 
names/  My  reply  to  that  has  been  given  ;  my 
charge  was  specific,  not  general.  Mr.  Lang  goes 
on  to  say  that  about  several  of  the  gentlemen 
I  denounce  one  ^  may  easily  be  silent/  as  ^  it  is  not 
given  to  everyone  to  keep  up  with  current  litera- 
ture.' Very  characteristic  this,  as  we  shall  see 
later  on,  of  an  author  who,  more  than  most  of  us, 
watches  every  swirl  and  current  of  the  literary  tide. 
Of  course  Mr.  Lang  knows  these  gentlemen  as 
well  as  I  do,  but  they  do  not  belong  to  his  '  set,' 
and  he  has  no  particular  call  to  defend  them.  He 
then  goes  on  to  say  that  M.  Bourget,  though  he 
may  be  a  ridiculus  mus,  can  ^  interest  us,  in  spite 
of  everything ';  and  he  adds,  lightly,  that  '  M. 
Bourget  has  "  done  a  murder  very  well  indeed,  with 
pleasing  circumstances  of  good  taste." '  Here 
again,  as  we  shall  see,  is  characteristic  levity  in; 
dealing  with  a  serious  accusation.  Mr.  Lang  then 
defends  Mr.  James,  and  vows  that  he  has  written 
at  least  four  admirable  novels.  I  do  not  think  that 
I  denied  Mr.  James's  cleverness  ;  I  said,  indeed, 
that  he  was  very  clever.  My  charge  was  that  he 
was  superfined  to  the  point  of  indetermination,  that 
he  became  feeble  from  supreme  good  taste  and 
overweening    catholicity.      My    critic,    then,    with 

1 6 — 2 


244  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

growing  irritation,  refers  to  Mr.  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  a  valuable  reference,  as  we  shall  see. 
I  called  Mr.  Stevenson  *  a  hard-bound  genius 
in  posse ';  by  which  I  meant  that  he  was  a  genius 
who  had  never  expressed  himself  in  creative  work, 
although  Mr.  Lang  and  his  friends  have  attached 
noisy  importance  to  every  one  of  his  callow  flights 
in  literature.  Mr.  Lang  refers  me  triumphantly  to 
*  Kidnapped '  and  *  Treasure  Island,'  two  excellent 
books  for  boys,  and  (as  a  proof  that  this  cannot 
be  the  period  when  ^  all  young  men  never  have 
dreamed  a  dream  or  been  children  ')^  to  ^  A  Child's 
Garden  of  Verse.'  I  am  loath  to  say  one  word 
in  deprecation  of  the  praise  Mr.  Stevenson  has 
received  from  his  contemporaries  ;  personally,  he 
deserves  it  all  for  modest  gentleness  and  persistent 
work  ;  and  the  exaggeration  of  his  performances 
would  matter  little  if  every  such  exaggeration  did 
not  mean  the  neglect  of  young  writers  at  least 
equally  deserving.  The  late  Mr.  Jefferies,  who 
was  a  genius  in  esse,  had  to  die  miserably  before 
the  fact  of  his  genius  was  discovered ;  and  for 
every  word  of  praise  he  gained,  Mr.  Stevenson 
received  a  thousand.  Mr.  Lang,  in  his  reckless 
light-heartedness,  has  actually  talked  of  the  author 
of  *  Treasure  Island  '  in  the  same  day  with  Walter 
Scott,  but  he  has  refrained  from  informing  the 
reader  of  such  trifling  matters  as  the  bodily  theft 
of  the  young  writer's  leading  character,  the  one 
*  Of  course  I  said  nothing  of  the  kind. 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  245 

striking  character  in  the  book,  viz.,  the  bhnd  man, 
out  of  the  pages  of  '  Barnaby  Rudge.'  For  the 
rest,  *  Treasure  Island,'  excellent  as  it  is,  is  a  story 
of  '  reminiscences  '  of  better  stories  ;  at  its  best,  it 
is  worthy  (though  that,  indeed,  is  no  little  honour) 
of  Mr.  R.  N.  Ballantyne  ;  but  work  so  trivial  can 
never  justify  the  serious  language  used  concerning 
it  by  nepotic  criticism.  The  '  Child's  Garland  of 
Verse  '  is  another  matter  ;  as  poor  and  made-up  a 
matter,  from  any  child's  point  of  view,  as  one  can 
well  conceive  ;  and  yet  it  has  been  treated  as  the 
work  of  a  poet.  The  late  James  Thomson,  who 
died  miserable  and  neglected  only  a  little  while  ago 
in  the  casual  w^ard  of  a  London  hospital,  and  who 
wrote  poetry  which  will  live,  would  never  have 
died,  perhaps,  so  miserably,  if  he  had  received  one 
modicum  of  the  encouragement  vouchsafed  to  Mr. 
Stevenson.  Mr.  Lang  goes  on  to  say  that  the 
value  of  my  criticism  may  be  estimated  by  my 
casual  references  to  writers  of  another  age,  and  of 
more  settled  reputation.  I  call  Theophile  Gautier 
*  insufferable  ' —  Theophile,  *  the  joy  of  youth.' 
Heaven  help  the  youth  of  whom  this  extraordinary 
stylist,  who  treats  the  flesh  like  a  porkbutcher,  and 
makes  love  like  a  cony  of  the  burrows,  is  to  be  the 
joy  1  Since  Mr.  Lang  has  faith  in  the  '  golden 
book  of  spirit  and  sense,  the  Holy  Writ  of  Beauty,' 
I  leave  him  to  his  religion.  Again,  I  have  said 
that  Zola  is  a  dullard  an  fond ;  and  so  I  hold  him 
to  be  in  spite  of  all  his  genius  (which  I  was  among 


246  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

the  very  first  to  praise),  and  so  I  hold  every  man 
to  be  who  beheves,  au  fond,  that  baseness  and 
bestiahty  predominate  in  human  Hfe  and  character. 
I  called  this  pessimism  *  dulness,'  and  sought  no 
harsher  term. 

A  criticism  of  Mr.  Arnold  as  a  poet  would  be  out 
of  place  here.  What  I  said  of  him  dead  I  said  long 
ago  of  him  living.      He  was  a  poet  when  he  wrote 

*  Thyrsis  '  and  '  The  Strayed  Reveller.'  He  was 
no  longer  a  poet  when  he  perpetrated  his  verses  in 
unrhymed  Heinesque  ;  when  he  compared  the 
receding  tide  at  Dover  to  the  receding  Sea  of 
Faith,  and  could  find  nothing  better  to  say  of  a 
sublime  Humourist  than  that  *  the  World  smiled, 
and  the  smile  was  Heine'  This  may  be  criticism 
of  life,  but  it  is  neither  poetry  nor  even  decent 
imagery.  Au  reste,  Mr.  Arnold  forgot  that  Poetry, 
so     far     from     being    a     dilettante's     opinion     or 

*  criticism  '  of  life,  is  the  very  Spirit  of  Life  itself 

r      We  shall  get  into  deep  waters  if  we  discuss  in 

\  detail  the  correctness  or  incorrectness  of  my  opinions 

\  on  literature.      They   have   one   poor  merit — they 

l^are  at^  least   my   own.      If   Mr.    Lang  wishes    to 

understand  them  (and  no  man  is  better  able  if  he 
■\  will  try),  he  will  learn  that  from  my  point  of  view 

literary  accomplishments  are  nothing,  and  literary 

1  fame  is  less  than  nothing,  when  they  do  not  imply 

/   that  spiritual  insight  which  I  believe  to  be  the  one 

[ ^prerogative  and  proof  of  genius.      I  am  not  at  all 

what  Mr.  Lang  calls  me,  a  virtuous  person.      I  am 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  247 

not  at  all  what  he  implies  me  to  be,  a  person  who 
makes  it  a  condition  that  anyone  to  be  worthy  of 
admiration  must  agree  with  a  certain  view  of  life 
and  ethics.  I  find  the  spiritual  insight  I  demands 
in  Herbert  Spencer  as  well  as  Dr.  Martineau,  inj 
Walt  Whitman  as  well  as  Lord  Tennyson,  in  the  I 
late  Mr.  Darwin  as  well  as  Faraday,  in  Byron  as 
well  as  the  late  Mr.  Longfellow,  in  Burns  as  well  as  ] 
Keble,  in  Mr.  Bradlaugh  as  well  as  Mr.  Gladstone. 
I  do  not  find  this  insight  in  any  thinker  who  has 
a  retrograde,  or  a  contemptuous,  or  a  dilettante 
view  of  human  nature.  I  sit  at  the  feet  of  no 
bogus  reputation,  however  magnificent ;  worship 
no  idols,  however  bedizened  by  criticism ;  follow 
no  particular  religion,  and  assume  no  particular 
morality.  My  cardinal  literary  crime,  up  to  the 
present  moment,  is  that  I  do  not  worship  Goethe  ; 
that  I  hold  him  to  be,  with  certain  qualifications, 
a  tedious,  a  tiresome,  and  a  dilettante  writer  ;  an 
opinion  based,  not  upon  '  The  Grand  Coptha '  and 
his  voluminous  miscellanies,  but  on  his  popular 
masterpieces.  Thus  it  is  clear  I  am  not  a  hero- 
worshipper,  that  I  reverence  no  qualities  in  a  writer 
or  in  a  man  but  Truth  and  Goodness.  All  this,  I 
am  aware,  is  highly  provincial,  but  I  am  a  pro- 
vincial, not  a  Cockney.  If  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  can 
give  as  good  reasons  for  his  prepossessions  as  I  can 
for  every  one  of  mine,  he  has  my  sincere  congratu- 
lation. They  will  be  far  more  valuable  to  him  in 
a  worldly  point  of  view,  since,  unlike  mine,  they 


248  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

will  facilitate  his  philosophy  of  easy  acquiescence, 
general  discretion,  and  *  jogging  comfortably  along.' 
Let  us  touch  now  in  this  connection  on  another 
question  directly  connected  with  the  subject  of  the 
present    article.       There    is    no    charge    which    so 
seriously  affects  the  character  of  a  contemporary, 
whether   he  be  politician,   poet,  artist,  or  general 
man  of  letters,   as  that  of  Nepotism.      Nepotism 
is    congenital    Trades   Unionism ;    it    is,    in    other 
words,  an  attempt  in  criticism  at  Over-legislation, 
or  Providence  made  Easy — to  those  who  believe  in 
a  literary  Providence.      Often,  when  proven,  it  has 
caused  the  fall  of  a  great  statesman  ;  and  I  see  no 
reason  why  it  should  not  wreck  the  reputation  of 
a  small  critic,  or  small  body  of  critics.      In  litera- 
ture it  is  a  cruel  crime,  since  it  means  the  exalta- 
tion of  mediocrity,  and  the  perversion  of  the  rising 
generation.      Nepotism  is  the  poison  of  which  such 
men  as  Keats  and  Coleridge,  as  Richard  Jefferies 
and  James   Thomson,   miserably   died.      Read   the 
life   of   Coleridge.      Read  the    words   which    were 
written  by  the  cliques  of  that  great  and  good  man 
up  till  a  few  months  before  his  death,  and  note  en 
passant  that  Blackwood's  Magazine,  which  labelled 
him  at  the  height  of  his  living  achievement .  as  a 
dotard  and  a  driveller,  honoured  him  on  his  decease 
a  few  months  afterwards  as  the  greatest  of  English 
writers  !     Nepotism,  of  course,  does  not  kill  strong 
men.     Wordsworth,  we  know,  survived  its  endless 
persecution.      But  the  weak,  too  gentle  man,  the 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  249 

struggling  writer,  the  genius  out  of  tune  with  the 
times,  perishes  by  it  daily.  What  comfort  is  it  to 
him  who  starves  for  bread,  who  hungers  for  a  little 
praise,  who  saddens  for  a  kindly  word,  to  be  told 
that  neglect  and  insult,  are  the  historic  credentials 
of  originality,  and  that  he  who  does  not  humour 
and  pander  to  the  Cockney  cliques  must  be  perse- 
cuted by  them  ?  So  long  as  little  men  band  to- 
gether, Cockneydom  and  Nepotism  will  always 
flourish.  To  be  outside  their  barriers  is  to  be  a 
*  provincial.'  To  be  within  them,  at  the  present 
moment,  is  to  be  a  ^  Cockney.'  Pass  the  word 
round  :  Trades  Unionism  is  rampant,  and  if  the 
non-union  man  is  not  discharged,  the  unionists  of 
criticism  will  strike  en  masse.  We  have  to  ask 
ourselves,  therefore,  if  Cockneydom  is  to  prevail 
in  Literature,  while  it  fails  so  miserably,  as  it  has 
failed  on  every  great  occasion,  in  Politics,  while  it 
gains  only  a  precarious  and  a  doubtful  victory  in 
Art  and  even  Science  ? 

It  is,  as  many  contend,  a  small  affair,  a  miserable 
affair,  and  he  who  comes  forward  to  discuss  it  will 
doubtless  be  set  down,  as  everv  reformer  has  been 
set  down,  as  cantankerous.  What  does  it  matter, 
after  all,  how  a  few  light-hearted  gentlemen  com- 
bine to  criticise  or  ignore  their  contemporaries  ? 
That  *  no  man  was  ever  written  down,  save  by 
himself,'  is  the  truest  of  all  sayings.  But  in  the 
meantime  ?  At  the  beginning  of  this  century 
Wordsworth  was  busily    '  writing   himself   down '  ; 


250  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

SO  even  was  the  prodigious  Goethe,  if  we  may- 
trust  the  Edinburgh  Revieiv,  just  before  Carlyle 
rushed  in  to  ^  write  him  up/  and  to  find  in 
*  Wilhelm  Meister '  not  a  tawdry  didactic  essay, 
but  a  ^  masterpiece.'  Is  it  not  a  httle  hard  that 
mediocrity  plus  Nepotism  should  have  all  the  cakes 
and  ale,  while  originality  plus  dissent  should  be 
denied  even  a  little  bread  ?  It  is  the  weak,  the 
unknown,  the  non-unionist,  who  suffer  most  by 
Cockneydom.  If  only  for  their  sakes,  it  is  worth 
inquiring  how  far  literature  is  now  suffering  from 
the  old  disease. 

There  appeared  some  little  time  ago  in  a  leading 
monthly  review  an  article  which  caused  the 
initiated  infinite  amusement ;  so  naive,  so  out- 
spoken, so  fresh  and  yet  florid,  was  its  impudence, 
so  specious  was  its  pleading  on  behalf  of  the  gospel 
of  literary  trades  unionism,  that  more  than  one 
reader  exclaimed  :  *  Nepotism  is  at  last  to  be  vindi- 
cated as  a  literary  religion  ;  there  are,  after  all, 
many  gods,  and  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  is  their 
prophet.'  We  all  knew  the  chirpy  Prophet  well ; 
admired  him  for  his  abundant  cleverness,  liked  him 
for  his  easy  good  temper,  even  when  we  most 
wondered  at  his  temerity.  He  was  one  among 
a  group  of  light-hearted  and  feather-brained  gentle- 
men who  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  literature 
is  not  literature,  but  high  jinks  ;  who  had  adopted 
the  moral  philosophy  of  Mr.  Puff  and  the  worldly 
wisdom  of  Mr.  Dangle,  and  who  were  resolved  to 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  251 

exchange  for  the  freedom  of  pure  letters  the  trades 
unionism  of  a  social  club.  Working  out  in  practice 
a  well-known  theory  of  the  great  Balzac,  that  a 
dozen  bold  and  unscrupulous  writers  might  easily 
conquer  criticism  and  occupy  all  its  bastions,  by 
religiously  banding  together  and  working  for  each 
other  in  and  out  of  season,  these  gay  fellows  had 
for  at  least  a  dozen  years  been  working  hard  for  a 
common  apotheosis  ;  and  the  result  had  fully  justi- 
fied the  great  Frenchman's  theory.  True,  there 
had  been  moments  of  peril  and  hesitation  ;  heart- 
burnings and  backslidings  caused  by  the  occasional 
obtrusion  of  individual  vanity  and  selfishness ;  but 
on  the  w^hole  the  spiriting  had  been  done  so  cun- 
ningly and  so  cleverly,  the  anonymous  system  of 
criticism  had  been  utilized  so  judiciously,  that  the 
reading  public — or  at  least  the  Cockney  portion  of 
it — had  been  converted  to  the  belief  that  England 
was  labouring  under  an  absolute  plethora  of  original 
genius — nay,  even  America  had  been  invaded,  and 
Boston  itself  had  paraded  in  its  newspapers  and 
magazines  the  likenesses  of  the  new  gods  of  litera- 
ture. Great  little  poets,  great  little  novelists,  great 
little  essayists,  great  little  critics  and  journalists, 
swarmed  on  the  walls  of  our  modern  Babylon ; 
helping  each  other  up,  praising  each  others 
prowess,  singing  each  other  s  songs,  sharing  with 
each  other  the  hot  ginger  of  ambition,  and 
chucklinor  to  one  another  over  their  adventurous 
feats  of  warfare.      Well,  it  was  magnificent,  but  it 


252  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

was  not  war  at  all.  It  was  the  mere  skirmTshing 
of  Nepotism.  It  needed  only  one  piece  of  sound 
artillery  to  put  all  the  skirmishers  to  rout,  and, 
strangely  enough,  the  Prophet  of  the  new  religion 
provided  that  same  artillery,  and  by  bungling 
turned  it  upon  his  own  friends,  when  he  recklessly 
opened  fire  from  the  masked  battery  of  'Our 
Noble  Selves.'^ 

Let  me  now  turn  aside  from  the  personal  ques 
tion  to  one  broader  and  more  cosmopolitan.  My 
article  on  '  The  Young  Man  as  Critic '  elicited, 
among  many  other  comments,  one  in  the  editorial 
columns  of  the  Daily  Telegraphj  in  which  the 
writer,  while  expressing  sympathy  with  my  views 
in  genera],  objected  that  I  was  somewhat  unjust  to 
the  higher  work  of  my  contemporaries.  I  therefore 
wrote  and  published  a  letter,  under  the  title  '  Is 
Chivalry  Still  Possible  ?'t  pointing  out  that  the  issue 
involved  affected  the  whole  fabric  of  modern  society, 
and  more  particularly  the  moral  and  social  status 
of  the  two  sexes.  The  Cockney  pessimist,  I  con- 
tended, had  poisoned  the  wells  of  life  and  literature 
to  such  an  extent  that  Chivalry,  by  which  I  implied 
the  old-fashioned  faith  in  female  purity  and  good- 
ness, was,  like  other  religions,  fast  passing  away. 
The  discussion  raged  for  some  little  time,  but  of 
the  many  letters  which  appeared  on  the  subject, 
scarcely  one  dealt  logically,  or   even   instructedly, 

*  See  the  Fortnightly  Review. 

t  See  ante,  the  section  under  that  head. 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEVDOM.  253 

with '  my  main  contention.  As  usual,  also,  the 
subject  had  to  be  expurgated  of  all  objectionable 
matter  ;  for  I  had  touched  on  what  is  known  as 
the  Great  Social  Evil,  asserting  that  its  existence 
was  the  shame  of  civilization.  The  remedy  I  sug- 
gested was  a  higher  standard  of  purity  on  the  part 
of  raen — a  remedy  which  every  Cockney  regarded 
with  supreme  derision.  I  took  the  sentimental 
view — the  provincial  view — which  still  regards 
'  seduction '  as  the  great  factor  of  public  immorality, 
and  I  proclaimed  my  sympathy  with  the  martyred 
class.  At  this  point  I  had  to  join  issue  with  Mrs. 
Lynn  Linton,  a  lady  who  is  intellectually  an  honour 
to  her  sex,  but  who  has  unfortunately  sided  with 
those  who  are  sceptical  as  to  the  powers  of  woman- 
hood. Mrs.  Linton  dubbed  me  roundly  a  '  senti- 
mentalist,' and  scouted  the  idea  that  women  were 
to  be  '  coddled '  and  persuaded  that  they  were 
superior  beings.  But  my  fair  antagonist,  like  the 
rest,  entirely  lost  sight  of  the  premisses  on  which 
my  argument  had  started — viz. ,  that  the  true  cause 
of  feminine  deterioration  was  masculine  corruption, 
and  that  the  real  cause  of  masculine  corruption  was 
the  omnipresent  want  of  faith  in  spiritual,  or  in 
other  words  religious,  ideals.  I  contended,  more- 
over, and  I  again  contend,  that  a  man  has  no  right 
to  set  up  for  a  woman  any  personal  standard  of 
thought  or  conduct  by  which  he  is  unable  or  un- 
willing to  measure  himself.  If  women  are  to  be 
pure,  I  said,  let  men  be  pure  too.      I  did  not  mean 


254  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM 

by  purity  the  negation  of  human  passion.  Unfor- 
tunately, in  the  artificial  atmosphere  of  Cockneydom 
any  man  who  professes  to  be  a  logician  is  liable  to 
be  set  down  as  a  Puritan — even  a  '  prig';  and  so  I, 
who  never  had  any  virtue  to  speak  of,  who  profess 
no  particular  personal  piety,  was  taunted  with  being 
a  virtuous  and  a  pious  person — a  taunt  which,  if  it 
had  been  applicable,  would  certainly  have  been 
complimentary.  All  I  held  was  that  men  who  are 
notoriously  impure  themselves  have  no  right  to 
persecute  the  individuals  who  minister  to  their  im- 
purity ;  that  the  man  whose  life  is  (as  Goethe  said 
of  his  walk)  a  series  of  falls,  has  no  right  to  despise 
the  woman  whom  he  drags  down  with  him.  And 
yet,  as  everyone  is  aware,  all  the  onus  mali  falls  on 
the  weaker  sex — falls  more  especially  on  her  whom 
I  designated,  after  a  Divine  Ideal,  the  Magdalen. 
With  curious  want  of  logic,  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton 
identified  my  Magdalen  with  the  depraved,  drunken, 
besotted  creature  of  the  streets  and  the  gin-shops, 
battered  by  misery  out  of  all  human  likeness ; 
whereas  the  true  Magdalen  is  the  woman  who,  in 
spite  of  all  physical  degradation,  brings  her  peni- 
tence, the  spikenard  and  myrrh  of  her  spiritual 
yearning,  to  the  feet  of  a  Redeemer.  The  modern 
pessimist  contends  that  this  Magdalen  is  an  impossi- 
bility— that  the  true  original  is  even  as  himself, 
evil  because  evil  is  of  the  very  essence  of  her 
nature  ;  and  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton,  a  pure  woman,  a 
good  woman,  and   a   woman   (I   am    sure)    who  is 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM,  255 

generous  and  loving  to  a  fault,  sides  herself,  I  am 
grieved  to  say,  with  the  modern  pessimist. 

Chivalry,  as  I  understand  it,  is  (1)  the  belief 
that  the  moral  temperament  of  women  is  superior 
to  that  of  men,  and  (2)  that  men  should  regulate 
their  social  conduct  by  the  laws  feminine  insight 
has  discovered."^  Of  course,  this  belief  goes  right 
in  the  face  of  modern  Pessimism,  not  to  say  modern 
Science.  A  grim  young  pessimist  confided  to  me 
only  the  other  day  his  belief  that  there  were  no 
really  'good'  women  except  'fools' — ^.e.,  unintel- 
lectual  persons  ;  and  this  belief  is  very  common. 
Science  fortifies  it  by  asserting  that  woman  has  a 
smaller  brain,  a  narrower  understanding,  than  man ; 
that  in  her  case  the  sexual  evolution  dwarfs  and 
narrows  the  mental  evolution  at  every  stage.  And 
Mrs.  Linton,  herself  a  woman  whose  intellectual 
gifts  it  would  be  difficult  to  parallel  among  men — 
a  woman  who  is  careful  to  tell  us  that  she  has 
fulfilled  all  feminine  functions  and  duties — scoffs  at 
the  equality  of  the  sexes  with  the  very  accomplish- 
ment which  refutes  her  theory  !  Surely,  some  less 
disqualified  person,  not  a  woman  of  genius,  should 
tell   us   that   a  woman   unsexes   herself  when  she 

*  I  was  delighted  to  note  that  Mr.  Pinero,  in  a  recent  play, 
*  The  Profligate/  upheld  this  view,  but  unfortunately  he  con- 
ciliated the  Cockneys  by  his  catastrophe,  and  made  the  pure 
woman,  as  usual,  give  her  profligate  a  clean  bill  of  domestic 
health.  Reverse  the  positions,  and  how  criticism  would  protest  ! 
Yet  I  cannot  understand  for  the  life  of  me  how  any  average  man 
can  dare  to  pronounce  judgment  on  any  woman,  however  fallen. 


256  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

measures  herself  against  man,  and  demands  from 
him  equal  rights  and  equal  privileges  I  My  own 
experience  is  that  intellectual  culture,  so  far  from 
making  women  hard  and  rectangular,  almost  in- 
variably deepens  their  insight  and  makes  them 
more  spiritual.  If  it  occasionally  renders  them 
*  masculine,'  it  only  does  in  the  inverse  ratio  what 
it  does  to  some  men,  by  rendering  them^  in  the  bad 
sense,  feminine.  Intellectual  culture,  whether  in 
man  or  woman,  is  the  poorest  and  meanest  of  all 
accomplishments  when  it  is  not  coincident  with 
spiritual  development.  What  is  called  culture  is 
often  only  another  word  for  narrow-mindedness,  for 
dilettantism.  If  a  human  being  does  not  become 
better  and  wiser  through  what  he  or  she  knows, 
the  knowledge  is  practically  worthless.  Super- 
natural cleverness  did  not  create  in  Goethe  the 
enthusiasm  of  Humanity,  but  it  created  it  in 
Schiller  and  Richter,  who  were  infinitely  less 
^  clever,'  infinitely  less  *  knowing.' 

Chivalry,  however,  is,  as  I  have  discovered,  quite 
provincial.  Imperial  Cockneydom  will  have  none  of 
it.  The  Cockney,  with  Mr.  Podsnap  and  the  editor 
of  Truths  puts  all  moral  difficulties  behind  him  ;  the 
discussion  of  the  wrongs  of  women  is  '  unsavoury'; 
the  great  journal  which  opened  its  columns  to  that 
discussion  was  '  pandering  to  a  morbid  appetite,  in 
order  to  increase  its  circulation.'  Elsewhere,  in  less 
discredited  quarters,  there  is  the  same  prurient  ten- 
dency to  ^  hush  up  '  those  agitations  which  imperil 


IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM.  257 


the  moral  status  of  men.  If  you  vindicate  Marion 
de  Lorme,  you  asperse  directly  or  indirectly  the 
character  of  the  Cardinal,  with  a  possible  innuendo 
concerning  the  King  himself !  The  Cockney  senti- 
ment— a  sentiment  existing  wherever  Cockneydom 
prevails — appears  to  be,  that  open  discussion  is  in- 
expedient, and  that,  if  left  alone,  the  world  (with 
Mr.  Lang)  can  ^jog  comfortably  along.'  Of  course, 
there  is  a  possibility  of  such  revelations  being  made 
as  absolutely  corrupt  and  poison  the  atmosphere 
they  assume  to  clear  ;  and  this  was  notoriously 
exemplified  a  short  time  ago.  *  Unto  the  pure  all 
things  are  pure '  is  true  enough  as  applied  to  grown 
men  and  women,  whose  purity  is  a  matter  of  degree  ; 
but  many  things  which  are  pure  enough  from  our 
point  of  view  are  utterly  impure  from  the  point  of 
view  of  a  maiden  or  a  child.  '  The  young  person '  is 
a  fact,  even  in  the  exaggerated  caricature  of  a  Miss 
Podsnap  ;  and  her  innocence  is  also  a  fact,  with 
which  even  a  publicist  should  reckon. 

Perhaps,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  there  is  a 
dash  of  the  '■  Cockney '  in  us  all  ;  in  all  of  us,  at 
any  rate,  who  have  lived  in  the  great  cities,  and 
known  little  of  the  solitudes.  I  myself  can 
remember  being  very  much  shocked  at  Mr. 
Bradlaugh  when  he  first  uttered  those  diatribes 
which  earned  him  so  unenviable  a  name,  and  I 
could  not  at  once  realize  that  I  was  listening  to 
the  best  music  in  the  world,  the  voice  of  an  honest 
man.      Cockneyism,  after  all,  is  only  self-righteous- 

17 


25S  IMPERIAL  COCKNEYDOM. 

ness  and  self-conceit,  using  a  flippant  vocabulary  to 
cover  envy,  hate,  and  all  uncharitableness.  Cock- 
neyism,  imperialized,  is  completed  social  and  literary 
vanity,  extending  from  a  metropolitan  centre  to 
organizations  all  over  the  earth.  Yet  the  gospel 
of  *  jogging  comfortably  along,'  the  art  of  conven- 
tional veneer,  the  methods  of  Nepotism,  have  always 
been  more  or  less  sanctioned  by  Society,  while  the 
bold  Provincialism  which  calls  things  by  their  true 
names,  and  is  always  over-ready  for  martyrdom, 
has  never  been,  and  never  will  be,  either  profitable 
or  fashionable. 


IS   THE   MAREIAGE   CONTRACT 
ETERNAL  ? 


17—2 


IS    THE    MARRIAGE    CONTRACT 
ETERNAL  ? 

To  the  Editor  of  the  ^ Daily  Telegraph.'' 

Sir, 

Mr.  Gladstone's  ideas  on  the  subject  of 
*  Marriage  and  Divorce/  as  set  forth  in  the  current 
number  of  the  North  American  Review,  have  been 
famiHar  to  us  all  ever  since  the  publication  of  his 
paper  on  the  same  subject  which  appeared  among 
the  '  Ecclesiastical  Essays.'  For  my  own  part, 
much  as  I  dissent  from  the  views  expressed,  I 
honour  and  reverence  them,  as  symbolic  of  a  per- 
fectly stainless  and  beautiful  wedded  life.  I  know 
that  every  word  they  contain  comes  from  the 
bottom  of  one  of  the  kindest  hearts  beating  on  this 
planet,  and  in  presuming  to  correct  so  apostolic  a 
person  as  Mr.  Gladstone,  a  man  who  belongs  to 
the  high-priesthood  of  human  nature,  I  am  re- 
strained by  no  little  reverence  and  affection.  But 
I  know  well,  as  all  sane  men  must  know  by  this 
time,  that  this  great  leader  would  prefer  to  any 
half-hearted  acquiescence  a  firm  yet  respectful  con- 
tradiction.     '  Great    is    the     truth,    and    it    must 


262     IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL? 

prevail/  has  been  his  watchword  throughout  his 
Ufe/  and  he  will  forgive  now,  for  the  Truth's  sake, 
the  denial  of  one  who  sympathizes,  but  who  is  not 
a  disciple. 

Veiled  in  the  golden  cloud  of  a  happy  destiny, 
crowned  with  the  lilies  and  roses  of  that  perfect 
conjugal  peace  which  Swedenborg  justly  thought 
the  noblest  blessing  of  human  life,  Mr.  Gladstone, 
confident  of  his  individual  happiness,  forgets  the 
conditions  of  human  nature.  His  apj^eal  to  Christian 
documents,  his  erudite  citation  of  the  Christian 
Fathers,  to  prove  a  point  which  can  only  be  estab- 
lished by  human  Science,  may  be  gently  set  aside 
for  the  present  as  irrelevant.  To  contend  upon 
Biblical  evidence  that  Marriage  is  a  Contract  for 
Eternal  Life,  never  to  be  entered  into  with  a  new 
individual  after  bodily  and  spiritual  separation  from 
another,  is  not  much  more  tenable  than  to  hold 
carnal  Love  itself  a  thing  to  be  avoided  because 
the  Apostle  Paul  rebuked  the  fleshly  appetites  and 
held  matrimony  only  a  little  better  than  concu- 
piscence. Surely  that  Protestantism  which  Mr. 
Gladstone  loves  so  well  decided  long  ago  that 
human  Conscience  is  superior  to  any  constituted 
authority  ;  and  surely  also  Free-Thought,  the  heir 
male  of  Protestantism,  has  convinced  us  at  last  that 
Knowledge  is  antecedent  to,  and  supreme  over,  the 
domination  of  any  Documents.  As  I  have  else- 
where written,  the  man  who  says  that  a  Book  can 
corrupt  his  Soul  ranks  his  Soul  lower  than  a  Book  ; 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL?     263 

and  even  when  a  Book  is  wise  beyond  the  possibiHty 
of  corruption,  it  is  poorer  and  feebler  at  best  than 
the  human  inspiration  out  of  which  it  came.  Unless 
the  sun  of  human  intelligence,  like  the  sun  of 
Joshua,  has  stood  and  is  standing  still,  the  later 
inspiration  must  supplement  the  earlier,  and  the 
Bible  of  Humanity  remain  incomplete,  until  many 
another  Book  is  written.  Generations  ago  Milton 
added  to  it  one  luminous  page — -that  in  which, 
starting  from  Mr.  Gladstone's  side  of  the  compass, 
he  vindicated  the  right  of  Divorce  in  the  name 
of  the  Christian  documents  ;  and  Milton,  were  he 
living  now,  had  he  learned  what  Man  knows  now, 
would  have  uttered  truer,  though  not  mightier, 
words  in  the  name  of  human  inspiration. 

For  surely,  the  hour  has  come  when  the  rights 
and  needs  of  human  nature  are  no  longer  to  be 
decided  by  the  straggling  traditions,  the  vagrant 
and  often  feeble  utterances,  of  those  who  were 
Martyrs  and  Apostles  of  Liberty  once,  but  who, 
were  they  living  now,  and  waging  the  same  conflict 
against  social  science,  would  be  regarded  as  fit  sub- 
jects for  Bedlam.  Since  the  age  of  St.  Athanasius 
we  have  had  the  age  of  St.  Servetus,  whom  I,  for 
my  own  part,  value  more  highly  than  most  saints 
in  the  Church's  Calendar.  We  have  drained  our 
cities,  reformed  our  manners,  invented  soap  as  an 
adjunct  to  water,  and  become,  if  a  little  less 
credulous  of  documents,  a  great  deal  more  tolerant 
to  inspiration.     The  Poet  and  the  Philosopher  may 


264     /^  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL? 

now   get  in   a  word   occasionally   in  the  intervals 
of  pastoral  homilies  and  domiciliary  exhortations. 
True,  many  of  our  discoveries,  and  a  little  even  of 
our  inspiration,  are  of  comparatively  small  value. 
To  find  magnesium   in   the   moon   is  perhaps  not 
much  more  precious  than  to  ascertain,  with  Panurge, 
that  the  moon  is  made  of  green  cheese ;  while  to 
establish  the  caudal  ancestry  of  man  is  merely  to 
corroborate  the  irony  of  Voltaire,  and  to  verify  the 
fanciful  flights  of  Lord  Monboddo.      Even  Goethe's 
discovery  of  the  intermaxillary  bone,  though  pre- 
cious to  sheer  scientists,  has  had  very  little  efl'ect 
on  human  knowledge.      A  larger  and  certainly  less 
doubtful  discovery  is  the  quasi-legal  one — that  no 
contracts  are  really  binding  when  the  very  nature 
of  a  contract  is  unintelligible  to  the  contracting  in- 
dividuals ;  and  since,  pace  Christian  documents,  the 
Marriage  Contract  is  very  seldom  made  in  Heaven, 
and  is  very  frequently  entered  into  by  practically 
irrational  persons,  the  corollary  of  our  discovery  in 
this  direction  is — that  such  a  Contract  as  Marriage 
should  certainly  not  be  eternal. 

To  argue  this  part  of  the  question  thoroughly  out 
would  far  transcend  the  limits  of  a  brief  letter.  Far 
more  important  to  the  present  issue  is  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's extraordinary  suggestion  that  the  laxness  of 
public  opinion  on  the  subject  of  the  Marriage  Con- 
tract is  the  main  cause  of  the  loose  morals  of  Modern 
Society  !  Even  here,  up  to  a  certain  point,  I  am 
with  the  modern  apostle.      I  believe  true  Marriage 


/S  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL 'i     265 

to  be  in  its  very  nature  Divine,  but  that  is  only 
another  way  of  saying  that  conjugal  Love  is  of 
necessity  eternal.  Well  has  it  been  said  that  '  he 
who  loves  once  can  never  love  again.'  Perfect  love 
between  man  and  woman  means  complete  fusion  of 
two  beings  into  one  immortal  Soul.  But  when  this 
Love  comes — and  it  does  come,  since  miracles  are 
daily  wrought — we  do  not  talk  any  longer  of  a 
contract ;  it  is  abolished,  it  has  vanished  ;  for  the 
parties  to  it  have  no  separate  identity — they  are 

*Two  souls  with  but  a  single  thought, 
Two  hearts  that  beat  as  one.' 

Unfortunately,  however,  the  miracle,  if  it  happens 
at  all,  only  happens  once  in  a  life -time,  and  after, 
in  the  majority  of  cases,  many  episodes  of  dis- 
hallucination.  Are  we  to  be  told,  in  the  face  of 
experience,  of  reason,  of  knowledge  in  ourselves 
and  around  us,  that,  because  a  man  or  a  woman 
has  blindly  signed  one  contract,  has  reached  out 
loving  arms  and  clasped  only  corruption,  has 
awakened  from  a  dream  of  Heaven  to  the  realiza- 
tions of  an  Inferno,  that  he  or  she  is  to  be 
precluded  for  ever  from  that  moral  redemj)tion 
which  Love  alone  can  give  ?  Through  the  im- 
perfection of  even  our  present  civilization  many 
individuals  commit  in  lawful  marriage  an  innocent 
and  pitiful  adultery.  Is  the  sin  so  committed,  by 
those  who  in  thought  are  sinless,  to  be  ratified,  to 
be  eternalized  and  christened  '  holy,'  by  any 
so-called    Law  of  God,   by   any   belated   Spectres 


266     IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNALS 

of  the    Apostles  ?      Is     eternal     solitude,    eternal 
isolation  from  all  that  makes  life  beautiful,  eternal 
misery  and  shame,  to  be  the  portion  of  the  creature 
who  has  been  blinded,  who  has  been  hoodwinked, 
who  has  been  charmed  by  Circe,  poisoned  treach- 
erously by  the   Siren,  polluted  shamefully  by  the 
Satyr  ?      If  Christianity  had  taught  this,  it  would 
have  long  ago  been  cold  and  dead  as  the   stones 
of  the  Sepulchre.      It  has  not  taught,  and  it  does 
not  teach   it.      At  its   highest  point  of  aspiration 
it    embraces    and    uplifts,   instead    of    corrupting, 
misleading,   and   destroying,   poor    human    nature. 
^It    teaches    us    that    the    one     Divine     thing     in 
Humanity  is  Love.      It   convinces  us   that   when 
Love  attains  its  apogee,  it  is  not  when  stooping  to 
sign  a  contract,  but  when  soaring  to  an  apotheosis. 
If  the  morals  of  modern  society  are  lax  (as  Mr. 
Gladstone   premises,  and   as   may  possibly  be   the 
case),    it   is    precisely   because    we    have    elevated 
Marriage,  as  an  institution,  as  a  contract,  and  have 
lowered  the  standard  of  conjugal  Love  ;  it  is  because 
there  has  come,  following  Man's  conventional  scorn 
of  Woman,  Woman  s  revolt  against  and  contempt 
for  Man.      I  do  not  myself  believe  that  Humanity 
has  suffered  in  the  least   from   the   clear  laws   of 
Rationalism  ;  I  do  believe  that  it  has  suffered,  and 
is  still  suffering,  from  the  miasma  of  moral  Super- 
\stition.      I    have     no    respect    whatever     for    the 
Marriage    Contract,  for   any  contract,  jper  se.      I 
want  first  to  know  the  character  of  the  contracting 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL!     267 

parties,  and  their  physical  and  spiritual  relation  to 
each  other.  When  asthmatic  January  weds  buxom 
May,  I  know  the  wedding-bells  are  being  rung  by 
the  Devil.  When  two  mistaken  Souls  embrace  in 
the  sanctuary,  and  discover  sooner  or  later  that 
Nature  never  meant  them  to  mingle  into  one,  I 
say,  '  Tear  that  blundering  contract ;  put  the  poor 
creatures  back  to  back,  and  let  them  march,  far  as 
the  ends  of  earth,  from  one  another.'  When  one 
Soul  turns  apart  in  cold  disdain,  and  another  Soul 
vainly  tries  to  draw  it  back,  I  think  '  all  this  is 
hopeless — say  the  sad  word,  Farewell.'  For 
unless  a  union  of  Souls  is  consecrated  by  LoVe, 
that  union  is  an  embrace  of  dead  branches  on  two 
withering  trees.  Shall  the  light  and  the  dew  and 
the  pure  air  fall  on  neither — and  for  ever  ?  Set 
the  trees  asunder,  and  each  may  grow ;  the 
eglantine  shall  come  to  one  and  the  woodbine  to 
the  other,  and  both  may  become  green  and  glad 
in  the  garden  of  the  World. 

True  Marriage,  indeed,  is  but  the  symbol 
(beautiful,  like  all  symbols  of  things  spiritual)  of 
which  the  reality  is  Love.  But  reason  teaches 
us,  experience  warns  us,  that  there  may  be  a 
symbol  for  things  bodily  as  well  as  one  for  things 
spiritual.  To  the  great  majority  of  human  beings 
the  marriage  contract  means  no  more  than  a  pledge 
to  be  kind  and  faithful,  to  resist  temptation,  to 
fulfil  gently  and  affectionately  the  duties  of  the 
household.       Such    a    contract     is     excellent,    and 


268     IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL? 

suffices  for  the  needs  of  large  classes  of  the  com- 
munity ;  but  surely  there  is  nothing  in  its  nature 
to  warrant  the  assumption  that  it  cannot  be  broken, 
if  by  no  slighter  cause,  at  least  by  the  death  of 
the  individual.  Out  of  the  Body  it  grew,  and  it 
perishes  with  the  Body.  Love  had  little  to  do 
with  it,  indeed  nothing  ;  for  Love  is  of  the  Soul. 

I  have  no  space,  at  least  now,  to  traverse  the 
whole  ground  of  an  argument  which  Mr.  Gladstone 
carefully  confines  to  the  region  of  orthodox  belief. 
The  Dome  of  Heaven  is  wider  than  that  of  St. 
Peter's  or  St.  Paul's,  and  the  Bible  of  Humanity 
is  broader  even  than  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
and  the  whole  library  of  the  Christian  Fathers. 
It  is  sad,  yet  pitiful,  in  this  nineteenth  century, 
in  the  era  of  religious  freedom  and  moral  emancipa- 
tion, to  behold  a  great  and  good  man  gazing  mildly 
backwards  on  the  Fairylands  of  Palestine  and 
Judaea,  and  in  order  to  find  some  vanished  star  of 
Love,  waving  aside  such  cloudy  apparitions  as  the 
countless  wives  and  concubines  of  Solomon.  Most 
strange  of  all  it  is  to  be  told  at  the  present  period 
of  social  despair,  that  a  Man  or  a  Woman  has  only 
one  solitary  stake  for  happiness,  and  that,  although 
the  Bride  is  a  Faustina,  or  the  Bridegroom  a 
Trimalchio-Csesar,  the  Marriage  Contract  is  never- 
theless eternal  ! 

Robert  Buchanan. 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNALt     269 


To  the  Editor  of -the  'Daily   Telegraph  J 

Sir,  / 

I  regret  for  many  reasons  that  your  cor- 
respondent ^  Realist/  in  commenting  upon  the 
subject  of  Marriage  and  Divorce,  has  imparted  into 
the  discussion  that  polemical  bias  which  so  often 
sets  honest  arguers  by  the  ears.  This  is  no  question 
of  (Ecumenical  Councils,  of  Papal  influences,  of 
Infallibility,  of  Agnostic  Cardinals ;  it  can  be 
debated,  I  think,  without  awakening  the  religious 
prejudices  of  any  class  of  believers.  There  are 
many  Roman  Catholics  sound  to  the  core  who  ar^ 
in  sympathy  with  the  intellectual  progress  of  mar][- 
kind  ;  nay,  there  have  been  far-seeing  and  saint Jy 
souls  even  at  the  Vatican.  The  hope  and  moral 
salvation  of  the  world  lie  now  in  the  fusion  of  the 
creeds  into  one  High  Creed  of  Humanity,  and  tnp 
healing  of  the  world  lies  in  its  thousand  nameles^ 
saints.  Whatever  my  creed  may  be,  I  bow  my 
head  before  Father  Damien  and  that  noble  priest  \ 
— truly,  priest  of  God — who  during  the  recent  ) 
trouble  which  threatened  our  whole  social  system 
stepped  bravely  forward  and  proved  the  one  in- 
fallibility— that  of  Goodness.  Let  us  not  drift 
backward  to  these  old  charges  and  counter-charges, 
these  battles  of  the  books,  these  vilifications  of  one 
creed  by  another.  It  is  not  merely  because  he  is 
a  dogmatic  Christian,  but  because  he  is  a  thinker 


270    IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL  1 

Open  to  all  the  gentle  influence  of  spiritual  forces, 
that  Mr.  Gladstone  has  become  the  champion  of 
Marriage  as  an  Eternal  Contract,  never  to  be  broken 
save  at  the  risk  of  moral  destruction.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  he  would  think  as  he  thinks  on 
this  subject  even  if  he  were  as  free  a  rationalist  as 
Mr.  John  Morley.  It  is  his  temperament,  not 
merely  his  religion,  which  makes  him  regard  the 
marriage  bond  as  a  holy  thing.  The  documents  in 
which  he  believes  seem  to  verify  his  human  instinct, 
that  is  all. 

The  history  of  the  Churches  is  one  thing  ;  the 
history  of  the  Christian  ideal  is  another.  Baffled 
for  centuries  by  the  adamantine  and  indestructible 
logic  framed  by  the  Apostles,  from  John  down- 
wards— those  Titans  who  scaled  the  very  walls  of 
Heaven,  and  only  just  failed  in  their  attempt  to  set 
the  Cross  above  the  seat  of  Jehovah — Religion  has 
at  last  resolved  to  seek  its  premises,  not  in  any 
religious  dogma,  not  in  any  metaphysical  chimera, 
not  in  any  crude  physical  discovery,  but  in  the 
highest  Science  of  all,  that  of  human  Sentiment. 
This  Science — a  product  of  all  moral  and  religious 
inspiration — has  established  as  one  of  its  cardinal 
principles  that  nothing  is  really  holy  which  conflicts 
either  with  the  natural  instincts  or  with  the  verified 
insight  of  human  nature.  It  has  rejected  the 
dogma  of  Eternal  Punishment  because  that  dogma 
is  repellent  to  common  justice  and  common-sense, 
and  it  has  rejected  the  no  less  dreary  rationalistic 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL'^    271 

dogma  that  Man  is  only   one  of  the  beasts  that 
perish,   because  that  dogma,  too,  though  promul- 
gated so  eagerly  by  the  philosophic  undertaker,  is 
opposed  at  every  point  to   common    instinct.      It 
utterly  refuses   also,   in  the  light  of  social  know- 
ledge, to  regard  Marriage  as  invariably  and  essen- 
tially sacramental.      To  accept  a  sacrament  of  any 
kind  a  man  or  a  woman  must  be  purified,  must  be 
^  born  again.'     Beautiful  indeed  is  Marriage  when 
the  recipients  of  its  happiness  can  accept  it  as  a 
sacrament.      How  many  do  so  ?     For  how  many  is 
to  do  so  possible  ?      To  the  great  majority  of  human 
beings,  Love  is  (as  I  said  in  my  first  letter)  of  the 
Body.      Now  the  time  is  long  past  when  the  Science 
of  Human  Sentiment  is  content  to  assume  that  Man 
is  a  spiritual  being  only,  without  flesh  and  blood, 
without  passions,  without  animal  instincts,  without 
those    corporeal    attributes    which    are    often    the 
beauty,  and  now  and  then  the  glory,  of  Humanity. 
By  his  mouth  is  he  fed  ;  by  his  appetites  is  his  life 
conditioned.      *  Carnal,  carnal  !'  cried  St.  Simeon  of 
the    Pillar,    and    so    cry    the  Saint's  emasculated 
modern    descendants.      But    the     very     spirit     of 
Christian  theology  asserts  in  its  supremest  sacra- 
ment  that   Flesh   and   Blood  may  be   themselves 
divine.      During  the  fierce  asceticism  of  the  early 
centuries  of  Christianity  (see  the  great  historian  of 
Rationalism,  passim)  every  human  sentiment,  every 
natural    affection,    was    repudiated    as     carnal,    as 
emanating   from  the  Spirit  of  Evil.      Fathers,   to 


272    IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNALS 

prove  their  spirituality,  dashed  out  the  brains  of 
their  Httle  children  ;  sons,  to  prove  their  purity, 
turned  in  loathing  from  their  own  mothers.  To 
be  indifferent  to  every  human  tie,  scornful  of  every 
human  impulse,  was  to  be  certain  of  the  hall-mark 
of  Salvation. 

Well,  that  is  all  over.  There  is  no  danger  to 
poor  human  nature  in  that  direction.  Science, 
which  is  only  Religion  veiled,  has  taught  us  to 
reverence  the  abodes  of  flesh  in  which  we  dwell, 
has  proved  to  us  that,  so  surely  as  we  desecrate 
them,  so  surely  shall  the  House  of  Life  fall  in  ruins 
about  our  ears.  We  believe  now  that  there  is 
sweetness  and  wholesomeness  in  every  human 
function,  that  neither  Asceticism  (which  degraded 
the  body  of  man)  nor  Virginity  (which  became  a 
rock  of  wretchedness  for  women)  is  necessarily  holy 
in  itself  Purity,  like  Love,  attains  its  apogee 
when  the  Soul  fulfils,  through  the  perfect  organiza- 
tion of  natural  passions  and  instincts,  the  sane  and 
lovely  laws  of  life. 

As  I  write  these  words,  there  bounces  in  upon 
me,  flushed  and  fluent,  the  '  Wife  and  Mother ' 
who  has  told  you,  in  resonant  periods,  that  the 
highest  bond  of  love  is  all  nonsense,  and  that  she 
is  content,  for  her  part,  to  take  her  husband  as  he 
is  (a  very  fragile  specimen  of  humanity),  and  to 
shake  hands  with  him  for  ever  at  the  gates  of 
Death.  Now  this  frank,  honest,  dish-and-all- 
swallowing  matron  pleases  me  well,  as  the  rooks 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL?     273 

in  the  rookery  and  the  cattle  in  the  fields  please 

me.      Right  honestly  she  admits  that  the  father  of 

her  children  is  a  cleverer  being  than  herself,  and 

must,    therefore,    have   plenty   of  rope    to  wander 

astray  with. 

'  "  Oh,  naughty,  naughty  world  !"  she  cries ; 
"  Men  are  a  dear,  immoral  set !" 
And  flirts  her  fan  and  winks  her  eyes. 
And  gaily  turns  a  pirouette.' 

She  is,  doubtless,  one  of  those  purely  beautiful 
creatures  who  have  made  men  what  they  are. 
Talking  the  other  day  with  a  friend  of  fair  in- 
telligence, I  was  assured  by  him  that  Man,  being 
an  intellectual  being,  was  independent  of  the  moral 
restrictions  incumbent  on  Woman,  who  is  not 
intellectual.  Men  of  genius  more  particularly, 
my  friend  averred,  were  to  be  allowed  to  do 
exactly  as  they  pleased.  The  question  of  the 
relative  intelligence  of  men  and  women  is  too  long 
to  be  discussed  here ;  but  in  a  remarkable  work 
recently  published — Dr.  Campbell's  book  on  the 
'  Causation  of  Disease '  —  the  evidence  will  be 
found  fairly  weighed.  I  should  say  myself,  from 
the  little  I  have  observed,  that  the  average  man 
is  in  no  respect  superior  intellectually  to  the 
average  woman,  while  the  names  of  Mary  Somer- 
ville,  of  Georges  Sand,  of  Mrs.  Browning,  and  of 
many  others,  are  sufficient  to  establish  that  women^ 
of  genius  are  tall  and  strong  enough  to  stand 
beside  men  of  genius  now  and  for  ever.  But 
Genius — so     called — is    to    me    a    very    unknown 

18 


2  74    ^S  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNALS 

quantity.  I  deny  that  it  has  any  privileges 
whatever,  or  that  it  can  make  any  laws  for  itself 
outside  the  laws  of  love  and  sympathy  by  which 
the  highest  and  the  lowest  live.  So  far  as  this 
very  question  of  Marriage  is  concerned,  our  men 
and  women  of  genius  have  often  got  into  very 
serious  trouble — not,  I  think,  because  they  have 
erred  in  their  interpretations  of  its  sanctions,  but 
because  they  have  generally,  in  the  face  of  public 
oi)inion,  overlooked  the  contract  and  searched 
everywhere  for  the  sacrament.  Nothing  proved 
so  completely  the  necessity  of  a  Science  of  human 
Sentiment,  as  opposed  to  the  still  lingering  dogmas 
of  unhuman  spirituality,  than  the  conduct  of  men 
like  Shelley  and  women  like  Georges  Sand. 
Twenty-fold  intellectual  power  would  not  save 
them  from  condemnation.  Unless  Genius  is  a 
synonym  for  Goodness,  it  is  a  sham  and  a 
phantom  ;  and  Goodness,  the  Soul  of  human  senti- 
ment, believes  that  no  intellectual  power  whatever 
can  justify  the  shameless  profanation  of  any  one 
human  function,  the  cruel  rending  asunder  of  any 
one  human  tie. 

The  point  upon  which  I  am  now  touching  is 
more  important  than  it  may  seem  at  first  sight. 
For  many  centuries  Man  has  justified  his  infamies 
to  Woman  on  the  score  of  his  intellectual  superi- 
ority, while  individual  men  of  genius  have  con- 
sidered themselves  entitled — on  the  score  of  their 
flatulent   '  inspiration ' — to   base   their  pyramid   of 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL?     275 

greatness  on  broken  hearts.  Lacking  the  temper 
of  hero-worship,  and  having  Httle  or  no  reverence 
for  mere  cleverness,  I  follow  the  records  of  certain 
famous  lives  with  much  the  same  feeling  that  I 
peruse  the  '  Newgate  Calendar,'  and  I  could,  with 
little  or  no  compunction,  see  Rousseau  whipped  at 
the  cart's  tail,  or  Alexander  Pope  put  in  the 
pillory.  The  right  of  indiscriminate  and  limitless 
aberration  claimed  for  men  of  genius  is  claimed, 
in  most  matters  of  conduct,  for  men  generally. 
Common-sense  recognises  neither  claim.  If  his 
artistic  gift  does  not  render  a  man  saner  and 
wiser  it  is  a  false  counter,  worth  nothing.  If 
the  superior  cleverness  claimed  by  men  over 
women  does  not  enable  them  to  keep  their  souls 
saner  and  their  bodies  purer,  it  is  only  the  clever- 
ness of  the  parrot  or  the  ape.  Physiologists  and 
Sociologists  are  very  fond  of  telling  us  that  since 
there  is  a  radical  difference  between  the  two  sexes 
it  is  absurd  to  lay  down  laws  of  conduct  for  both 
alike.  While  the  wife  sits  at  home  among  her 
children,  the  husband  is  free  to  amuse  himself  at 
his  own  sweet  will.  It  is  indeed  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  that,  to  quote  the  vulgarism,  he 
'  may  do  as  he  darn  pleases '  1  The  majority  of 
women  accept  this  condition  as  inevitable.  Even 
women  of  genius  are  found  ready  to  proclaim  the 
superior  intellectual  power,  and  the  greater  moral 
freedom  of  men.  And  thus,  in  the  very  land 
where  a  gray  modern  apostle  proclaims  that  Mar- 

18 — 2 


276    IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL 'i 

riage  is  Eternal,  we  find  the  eternal  parade  of  the 
two  meanest  of  all  privileges,  that  of  Intelligence 
and  that  of  Sex  ;  we  find  that  to  be  a  little  cleverer 
than  one's  neighbour  is  only  to  be  a  little  baser, 
a  little  fouler  both  in  mind  and  appetite  ;  we  find 
that  to  be  a  man,  hailed  as  the  highest  of  creatures, 
is  only  to  exist  on  the  same  plane  of  passions  as 
the  beast.  No  wonder  the  world  is  getting  tired 
of  the  religious  ideal,  of  the  faith  which  recognises 
only  one  privilege — that  of  truth,  of  goodness,  of 
purity,  both  personal  and  spiritual.  No  wonder 
the  laughter  echoes  from  club  to  club  at  the  mere 
notion  that  the  Matrimonial  Farce,  the  humour  of 
which  consists  of  jokes  about  male  hypocrisy  and 
female  toleration,  is  to  be  played  on  for  ever  ! 

In  asking  whether  Marriage  is  an  Eternal  Con- 
tract, we  mean  by  the  word  '  Eternal '  simply  the 
period  of  moral  consciousness.  Whether  or  not  we 
believe  in  eternal  Life  is  neither  here  nor  there.  It 
matters  little  whether  a  Soul  is  married  or  single 
when  it  has  been  absorbed  into  such  abstract  states 
of  practical  nonentity  as  the  '  Immanence '  of 
Spinoza,  the  '  Will '  of  Schopenhauer,  or  the 
'  Unconscious '  of  Hartmann.  Marriage,  be  it 
contract  or  sacrament,  is  a  relation  only  possible 
to  a  state  of  individuality.  The  whole  question, 
therefore,  narrows  itself  thus,  So  long  as  we  are 
conscious  creatures,  whether  in  this  world  or 
another,  have  we  the  right  to  marry  a  second 
time  ?      I    have    answered    that    question    in    the 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNALS     277 

affirmative,  while  asserting  that,  when  Marriage  is 
really  and  absolutely  sacramental,  it  must  of  its 
own  nature  be  permanent.  The  fusion  of  two 
perfectly  united  Souls  lasts  for  ever,  survives  all 
bodily  conditions.  This,  I  am  aware,  is  regarded 
by  the  world  in  general,  and  by  your  merry  '  wife 
and  mother  '  in  particular,  as  the  very  madness  of 
sentimental  optimism.  Well,  it  is  the  optimism  of 
the  Science  I  am  upholding,  that  of  human  Senti- 
ment. Just  as  surely  as  the  moment  of  supreme 
insight  comes  with  the  sacrament  of  Death,  touching 
our  tearful  eyelids  with  the  euphrasy  of  glorious 
pain,  so  does  the  moment  of  supreme  Marriage 
come  with  the  sacrament  of  Love.  There  are  men 
who  can  stand  in  a  death-chamber  and  see  only  the 
stone  mask  and  the  shadow  of  mysterious  dread. 
There  are  men  who  can  come  fresh  from  Bel- 
shazzar's  Feast — fresh  from  the  very  Handwriting 
on  the  Wall — and  put  on  over  their  uncleanness 
and  their  impurity  the  white  robes  of  the  bride- 
groom. For  such  men  Marriage  may  serve  as  a 
contract ;  it  is  all  they  need  for  self-protection,  all 
Society  needs  for  its  security.  To  tie  such  creatures 
by  a  Sacrament  is  monstrous  ;  they  are  incapable 
by  very  temperament  of  understanding  its  nature. 
But,  over  and  above  the  lower  strata  of  Humanity, 
there  exist  those  who  have  seen  Death  transfigured 
and  known  Love  unveiled  ;  men  and  women,  many 
of  them,  who  are  stained  and  fallen,  who  have 
experienced    endless    dishallucinations,    who     have 


278    IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL? 

been  in  revolt  against  the  conventions — nay,  even 
against  the  very  sanctities — of  Society.  These  men 
know  that  Love,  like  Death,  comes  to  the  Soul  but 
once  ;  that  Love  and  Death  may  come  hand  in  hand, 
that  once,  together.  Far,  far  more  beautiful  than 
the  sight  of  a  Shelley  standing  on  Harriet  West- 
brook's  grave,  or  running  from  his  next  wife's 
chamber  to  follow  the  frisky  heels  of  homebred  or 
foreign  ladies,  is  the  picture  of  poor  Byron,  be- 
smirched with  his  own  mad  sensuality  from  head 
to  foot,  yet  still  dreaming  of  the  sacrament,  the 
sublime  moment,  the  eternal  passion,  which  never 
came.  The  old  couple  sitting  side  by  side  and 
crooning  *  John  Anderson,  my  Joe,'  as  gentle  Death 
opens  its  arms  to  receive  them,  are  diviner  still. 
In  a  few  short  hours^  all  England  will  be  looking 
reverently  on  while  the  body  of  Robert  Browning 
is  committed  to  its  native  dust.  The  crown  and 
glory  of  that  great  man  s  life  was  its  consecration 
to  one  serene  and  sacramental  passion.  Through 
all  these  years  of  loneliness,  amid  literary  detraction 
or  coterie  fume  and  incense,  in  the  midst  of  the 
busy  world  or  out  of  it,  in  the  silence  of  his  own 
chamber,  Browning  listened  to  that  immortal  voice 
which  sings  of  eternal  love  : 

'  0,  lyric  Love,  half  angel  and  half  bird, 
And  all  a  wonder  and  a  wild  desire  !' 

Thus,    for    the     instruction     and     beatification    of 

humanity,     the     supremely    great     remained     the 

*  Written  just  after  Browning's  death. 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL?     279 

supremely  good,  and  in  his  great  song  his  great 
goodness,  completed  in  a  transfiguration  of  Love 
and  Death,  eternally  survives.  It  is  better, 
perhaps,  even  in  these  days  of  unbelief,  to  listen 
to  the  song  of  the  poet  than  to  the  purr  of  the 
contented  Matron,  who  looks  cheerfully  forward  to 
the  inevitable  moment  of  saying,  ^  Good-bye,  old 
fellow  ;  we've  got  along  very  comfortably  on  the 
whole,  and  we  part  on  the  best  of  terms/  Poor 
little  Matron  !  Does  she  really  live,  or  is  she  only 
a  male  cynic  masquerading  in  a  petticoat  ?  If  she 
lives,  I  see  no  reason  why  she  should  not  be  very 
happy.  The  legal  contract  was  made  for  her,  and 
suits  her  admirably.  I  see  no  reason,  moreover, 
why  she  should  not,  if  occasion  offers,  renew  it 
just  as  often  as  she  pleases.  The  Sacrament  of 
Love  is  another  thing. 

Robert  Buchanan. 


NOTE  ON  THE  PEECEDING. 
MR.  GLADSTONE'S  ECCLESIASTICAL  ESSAYS.* 

Essay-writing  appears  to  be  a  lost  art,  or  at 
least  an  art  in  which  few  people  now  take  any 
interest,  except  those  scattered  individuals  to  whom 
the  Quarterly  and  Edinburgh  and  other  old- 
fashioned  reviews  still  form  an  inspiration.    Instead 

*  'Gleanings  of  Past  Years,  1851—1875,'  by  the  Right  Hon. 
W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.P.  Ecclesiastical,  vols.  v.  and  vi.  London  : 
Murray. 


28o     IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL! 

of  the  essay  proper,  with  its  air  of  superhuman 
insight,  its  rapid  generaHzations,  its  bold  survey 
of  its  subject  as  of  mankind  '  from  China  to  Peru,' 
we  get  now  the  fragments  of  Experts,  on  whom  there 
sits  that  priggish  profession  of  infalHbihty  which 
is  even  more  irritating,  sometimes,  than  the  once 
popular  assumption  of  omniscience.  I  confess 
frankly  that  I  miss  the  old  style,  of  which 
Johnson  was  the  forerunner,  and  Macaulay  the 
supreme  and  imperial  outcome.  It  was  royal  in 
its  massive  impudence,  splendid  in  its  glorious 
marshallings  of  fact  and  fiction,  viewy,  broad, 
blatant,  and  very  entertaining.  Now,  the  new 
style,  whatever  its  other  merits,  is  not  so  enter- 
taining. It  is  far  too  correct,  microscopic,  technical, 
and  neglectful  of  what  we  may  call  the  grand 
manner  of  English  prose.  Your  old-fashioned 
essayist  might  be,  and  generally  was,  a  humbug, 
knowing  little  of  details,  smelling  the  paper-knife 
when  he  was  dealing  with  a  book,  scornful  of 
truth  when  he  was  dealing  with  things  and  men ; 
but  what  ground  he  managed  to  cover  !  how  fine 
was  his  verisimilitude  !  how  well  oiled  his  periods ! 
how  fluent  his  general  eloquence !  how  brilliant 
his  particular  flourishes  of  rhetoric !  how  bright 
his  occasional  flashes  of  wit !  Add  to  this,  that 
he  did  his  best  to  make  his  essay  exhaustive  of 
the  subject.  When  Macaulay  had  done  with 
Johnson  and  Bos  well,  the  topic  was  squeezed  dry ; 
there  was  no  necessity  even  to  go  back  to  Boswell's 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL!     281 

life.  The  reader,  omniscient  like  the  critic,  knew 
all  about  it  1  When  Jeffrey  had  disposed  of 
Wordsworth,  Wordsworth  was  sentenced ;  the 
reader  knew  all  about  him,  and  there  was  an  end. 
When  so  much  knowledge  could  be  gained  at 
secondhand,  it  was  quite  unnecessary  to  go  to  the 
fountain-heads.  Of  course  it  was  all  very  stupid, 
very  blatant,  and  very  unjust ;  but  on  the  other 
hand  it  was  so  thoroughly  judicial  !  Nowadays 
we  get  only  little  bits  of  literary  special  plead- 
ings, instead  of  grand,  swinging,  overpowering 
summings-up. 

Mr.  Gladstone's  manner,  in  these  so  -  called 
*  Ecclesiastical  Essays,'  is,  to  my  thinking,  a  com- 
promise between  the  old  style  and  the  new.  Like 
the  old  style,  verbose,  rotund,  fluent,  and  at  times 
omniscient ;  like  the  new  style,  careful,  watchful, 
accurate,  and  zealous  of  correction.  Born  under 
the  protection  of  the  old  gods  of  Edinburgh  and 
Albemarle  Street,  Mr.  Gladstone  has  lived  long 
enough  to  recognise  the  later  pantheon  of  scientists, 
experts,  and  professional  doctrinaires.  As  the 
world  well  knows,  he  is  a  man  of  much  know- 
ledge and  many  gifts,  with  a  good  deal  of  the  lost 
grand  manner,  modulated  by  a  fine  modern  feeling 
for  truth  and  verification.  In  an  omniscient  genera- 
tion, like  that  of  our  grandfathers,  there  would 
have  been  no  question  of  his  critical  greatness  ;  he 
would  have  sat  upon  the  Olympian  hill  of  criticism, 
and    felt    the   world    tremble   at    his    nod.      In  a 


282     IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNALS 

generation  like  the  present,  divided  between  moods 
of  paralyzing  caution  and  states  of  total  nescience, 
his  hand  is  weakened,  and  his  influence  almost 
doubtful.  He  would  fain  pronounce  judgments, 
but  he  is  too  conscientious  ;  he  would  limit  him- 
self to  special  pleading,  but  as  a  special  pleader 
he  is  very  roundabout  indeed.  Seen  as  he  here 
appears  before  us,  in  half  a  dozen  representative 
essays,  he  strikes  me  as  a  writer  of  eager  authorita- 
tiveness,  who,  under  happier  circumstances,  would 
have  made  a  first-class  Bishop,  but  who  suffers 
peculiar  discomfort  from  being  compelled  to  inhale 
the  too  clear  atmosphere  of  modern  advanced  ideas. 
Perhaps  the  most  characteristic  of  these  Essays 
is  the  one  on  *  The  Bill  for  Divorce,'  reprinted  from 
the  Quarterly  Review  of  1857.  It  commences  in 
the  old  way,  w^ith  a  lordly  outlook  on  Creation  and 
the  period  in  general.  '  The  age  in  which  we 
live  claims,  and  in  some  respects  deserves,  the 
praise  of  being  active,  prudent,  and  practical  : 
active  in  the  endeavour  to  detect  evils,  prudent  in 
being  content  with  limited  remedies,  and  practical 
in  choosing  them  according  to  effectiveness  rather 
than  to  the  canons  of  ideology,'  etc.,  etc.  *  Canons 
of  ideology'  is  good,  even  if  it  means  nothing. 
We  have  not  read  much  further  before  we  know 
what  side  the  writer  is  on  ;  that  he  is,  like  all  the 
omniscient  school,  on  the  side  of  authority  and  the 
powers  that  be.  Very  familiar  indeed  are  the 
phrases — '  the    fences    which    enclose    the    sacred 


IS  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNAL?     283 


precinct '  (Marriage),  '  general  decay  of  the  spirit 
of  traditionary  discipline/  '  the  relaxed  tone  of 
modern  society.'  Mr.  Gladstone,  like  a  very 
Bishop,  asseverates  that  marriage  is  a  life-long 
compact,  'according  to  the  Holy  Scripture,'  which 
may  sometimes  be  put  in  abeyance  by  the  separa- 
tion of  a  couple,  but  which  can  never  be  rightfully 
dissolved,  so  as  to  set  them  free,  during  their 
lives,  to  unite  with  other  persons.  As  might  be 
expected,  his  arguments  are  almost  entirely  Scrip- 
tural, though  he  is  not  above  passing  references  to 
the  Greeks  of  Homer,  to  Athenseus,  and  even  to 
Gibbon.  Nothing  could  be  more  idle  than  his 
examination  of  those  passages  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment which  touch  upon  the  question  of  Marriage 
and  Divorce,  unless,  perhaps,  that  other  portion  of 
his  essays  where  he  cross-examines  the  mediaeval 
authorities  and  Church  dignitaries.  I  have  no 
concern  here  with  his  argument,  which  it  is  no 
business  of  mine  either  to  support  or  refute  ;  but 
surely  no  one  not  saturated  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Old  Church  could  talk  in  this  way  on  so  solemn  a 
topic,  quite  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  no  such  topic 
can  be  settled  without  an  occasional  reference  to 
Science,  to  Philosophy,  and  to  Physiology.  In  some 
places,  notably  where  he  alludes  to  the  *  adamantine 
laws  of  grammar,'  and  examines  a  Greek  abstraction 
with  the  solemnity  of  a  pedant,  Mr.  Gladstone 
almost  passes  the  limits  of  human  patience.  He 
himself   talks   of  arguments    of    '  that    deplorably 


284    ^S  THE  MARRIAGE  CONTRACT  ETERNALS 

fatuous  description  which  almost  makes  a  man 
despair  of  his  age,  if  not  of  the  whole  future  of 
his  kind.'  Conceive  the  man  who  could  despair 
of  his  age,  not  to  speak  of  *  the  whole  future 
of  his  kind,'  because  doctors  and  divines  differ 
as  to  the  nature  of  Marriage,  and  its  char- 
acter as  a  *  Sacrament ' !  With  quite  forensic  fer- 
vour Mr.  Gladstone  tells  of  the  '  pestilent  ideas ' 
of  Milton.  '  That  for  which  he  (Milton)  pleads  is 
a  license  of  divorce  for  aversion  or  incompatibility; 
the  wildest  libertine,  the  veriest  Mormon,  could  not 
devise  words  more  conformable  to  his  ideas,  if, 
indeed,  we  are  just  to  the  Mormon  sages  in 
assuming  that  they  alienate  as  freely  as  they 
acquire  !' 

The  other  essays  in  the  volume  are  on  such 
themes  as  *  The  Functions  of  Laymen  in  the 
Church,'  ^  The  Church  of  England  and  Ritualism,' 
*  Ward's  Ideal  of  a  Christian  Church,'  and  '  On 
the  Royal  Supremacy.'  They  are  none  of  them, 
perhaps,  quite  so  earnest  or  quite  so  wrong  as  the 
essay  on  the  '  Bill  for  Divorce';  but  they  all  evince 
the  same  confusion  of  the  old  style  and  the  new. 
They  are  all  conscientious,  careful,  ornate,  and 
fairly  liberal  of  view.  They  are  all  old-fashioned 
in  the  sense  of  a  dictatorial  manner  and  a  lost 
style  ;  all  new-fashioned  in  the  sense  of  intellectual 
uneasiness  and  indisputable  zeal  for  truth.  But 
they  are  none  of  them  above  the  average  episcopal 
or  clerical  intellect ;  they  none  of  them  possess  the 


IS  THE  MARRIA GE  CONTRA  CT  ETERNA  L?      285 

higher  sort  of  Hterary  or  spiritual  insight.  If  I 
knew  Mr.  Gladstone  by  these  Essays  alone,  I 
should  think  him  a  very  able  and  zealous,  but 
by  no  means  extraordinary,  person  ;  knowing  him, 
as  I  do,  as  one  of  the  most  prominent  political 
figures  of  the  day,  I  can  now  clearly  understand 
why  he  has  become  the  great  disorganizing  force, 
the  most  disturbing  and  contradictory  influence,  of 
the  Liberal  Party. 


FLOTSAM    AND    JETSAM. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 
I. 


WHAT    IS    SENTIMENT 


? 


In  a  recent  number  of  a  new  publication  called  Ine 
Speaker,  there  is  an  article  on  ^  Sentimentalism/ 
in  w^hicb  it  is  contended  very  justly  that  the 
Aherglaube  of  hysterical  emotion  is  a  sham  thing 
by  the  side  of  true  pathos  ;  but  very  falsely,  that  the 
air  of  the  present  day  is  overcharged  with  ^  Senti- 
ment/ The  writer  thus  confounds  what  is  real 
with  w^hat  is  true — Sentiment  with  Sentimental- 
ism ;  and  the  confusion  is  one  which  has  been 
made  from  time  immemorial.  Sentiment, 
conceive,  is  the  power  which  generalizes  the  ex- 
perience of  mankind,  the  verification  of  long 
centuries,  concerning  the  links  which  unite  mem- 
bers of  the  human  family  surely  and  remorsely  1  / 
to  one  another,  and  which  thua  justifies  Poetry 
(in  the  words  of  Novalis)  as  the  only  Reality. 
Sentimentalism,  on  the  other  hand,  is  sentiment] 
perverted  and  overcharged  —  in  other  words,] 
become   unscientific.       While    objecting    somewhai 

7 


290  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

to  his  terminology,  I  cordially  agree  with  the 
writer  of  the  article  I  have  named  in  the  dis- 
tinction he  draws  between  true  and  false  pathos 
in  literature.  I  fail  altogether,  however,  to  follow 
him  in  his  contention  that  either  Sentiment  or 
Sentimentalism  are  much  in  the  air  at  present. 
I  believe,  rather,  that  cheap  Science  and  cheaj) 
Cynicism  are  destroying,  or  trying  to  destroy,  botJi 
the  sham  and  the  reality.  Men  nowadays  do  not 
feel  too  much,  but  far  too  little.  Thanks  partly  to 
the  influence  of  the  baser  portion  of  the  public 
Press,  the  era  of  completed  ethical  obtusity  seems 
fast  approaching. 

The  man  who  endeavours,  as  I  shall  endeavour, 
to  treat  Sentiment  as  an  exact_science,  stands  at 
a  strange  disadvantage  in  these  days  of  troubled 
materialism,  when  the  nobler  emotions  are  old- 
fashioned  and  unpopular,  and  even  Conscience  is 
likely  to  suffer  from  being  classed  as  a  complica- 
tion of  brain  secretions.  I  may  fairly  say,  how- 
ever, that  I  have  never  wavered  one  hair  in  my 
doctrine  on  this  subject,  from  the  day  when  I 
wrote  the  '  Ballad  of  Judas  Iscariot '  to  the  day, 
only  just  past,  when  I  dramatized  the  '  Clarissa  ' 
of  Richardson.  The  late  Lord  Houghton  said 
to  me  many  years  ago,  '  The  English  people 
are  practical,  they  do  not  care  for  Sentiment  ;' 
to  which  I  replied  by  quoting  several  extraordinary 
instances  of  popular  success  secured  entirely  by 
what  is   conventionally  known  as  Sentiment,  and 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  291 

especially  the  instance  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  It  was 
quite  clear,  however,  that  Lord  Houghton  attached 
the  ordinary  meaning  to  the  word  under  discussion, 
while  I  attached  to  it  a  meaning  by  no  means  ordi- 
nary. I  wish,  therefore,  to  put  the  question, 
'  What  is  Sentiment  ?'  Does  it  mean,  as  certain 
scientists  and  many  of  the  general  public  con- 
tend, a  false  and  distorted,  a  transcendental  and 
hysterical,  conception  of  the  relations  of  life — a 
general  distribution  over  thought  and  feeling  of 
what  is  known  as  Sentimentalism ;  or  does  it 
mean,  as  I  have  long  maintained,  the  absolute  ex- 
perience of  Humanity  in  the  process  of  reduction 
to  a  Science  ?  1 

Of  one  thing  we  may  be  quite  clear,  that  there 
was  never  a  period  in  the  world's  history  when 
the  mere  word  Sentiment  awakened  in  the  thoughts 
of  the  classes  called  cultivated  a  fainter  sympathy 
than  now.  Luxury  on  the  one  hand,  and  material- 
ism on  the  other,  have  done  their  work  so  com- 
pletely that  large  numbers  of  men  can  witness 
without  emotion  of  any  sort  even  the  Dance  of 
the  Seven  Deadly  Sins.  The  Rome  of  Juvenal 
is,  as  I  pointed  out  years  ago,  reproduced  in  the 
London  of  to-day.  The  spirit  of  a  spurious  and 
empirical  '  scientific '  philosophy,  adopting  as  its 
shibboleth  a  certain  specious  jargon  of  experimental 
ethics,  mental  culture  coincident  with  moral 
degradation,  the  avarice  of  the  rich  and  the 
misery  of  the  poor,  just   as   surely  contradict  the 

19 — 2 


^ 


292  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

stern   old  English   type  of  character  as  the   same 

phenomena  contradicted,  in    the   time  of  Juvenal, 

the   power,    the    integrity,    and    the    austerity    of 

ancient  Rome. 

'Et  quaudo  uberior  vitiorum  copia  ?  quando 
Major  avaritise  patuit  sinus  f 

The  parallel  might  be  pursued  down  to  the  smallest 
detail,  but  to  pursue  it  is  not  my  purpose.  I 
merely  desire  to  remark,  en  passant,  that  the 
present  social  crisis  is  not  unprecedented,  but  has 
occurred  more  than  once,  and  once  phenomenally, 
in  the  Evolution  of  Mankind.  The  Gospel  of 
Sentiment  shook  the  world  eighteen  centuries  ago. 
The  Science  of  Sentiment,  verifying  the  instinct 
of  that  gospel,  will  stir  it  now. 

The  Science  of  Sentiment,  then,  adopts  as 
its  cardinal  principle  that  the  evolution  of  human 
ethics  has  proceeded  in  direct  ratio  with  the 
growth  or  the  suppression  of  the  individual 
capacities  of  love  and  sympathy — sympathy  seen 
dimly  in  the  affinities  of  the  lower  organisms, 
shown  largely  in  the  lower  animals,  evolved 
wonderfully  by  human  aid  in  the  domesticated 
animals,  notably  in  the  dog,  and  attaining  to  the 
power  of  self-knowledge  in  the  Mind  of  Man.  The 
law  of  this  Science,  the  condition  on  which  it  exists, 
is,  like  that  of  all  other  sciences,  that  of  verifi- 
cation. To  verify  it  completely  would  be  beyond 
my  power.  I  shall  therefore  confine  myself  to  one 
position  only,  which  is  a  paradox — that \  Love  and 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  ^93^ 

\ 


Hate,  attraction  and  repulsion,  in  the  human  ^^  ^-<- 
creature,  are  practically  equivalent  forces,  although  \  r-*- 
divergent,  and  that  the  object  of  the  Science  of  J^^ 
Sentiment  is  to  reconcile  and  assimilate  them. 

An  illustration  comes  to  my  hand  in  a  play  from 
my  pen  produced  at  the  Vaudeville  Theatre.  One 
of  my  critics  has  assured  me  that  I  stultify  my  moral 
teaching  by  suffering  the  libertine  Lovelace  to  pro- 
fane by  a  touch,  even  for  a  moment,  in  her  dying 
delirium,  his  victim  Clarissa.  He  has  sinned  past 
all  pardon,  he  has  isolated  himself  from  all  humanity, 
by  a  hideous  act  of  violation  ;  and  so,  indeed,  the 
poor  girl  tells  him,  in  the  supreme  Aherglauhe  of  her 
exaltation.  Her  last  clear  words  are  of  eternal 
renunciation,  eternal  farewell.  He  says  he  will 
'  atone.'  '  You  cannot,  sir,'  she  answers  ;  '  it  were 
as  easy  to  turn  the  world  upon  its  course  and 
bring  all  Eden  back.'  This,  the  critic  says,  is 
final.  It  is  so  from  an  unscientific  point  of  view. 
But  the  Science  of  Sentiment  instructs  us  that 
though  individual  Man  cannot  bring  back  the  lost 
Eden,  God  can.  God,  the  eternal  Law,  the  loving 
Force  in  the  heart  of  physical  and  moral  evolution, 
completes  a  miracle  of  creation  in  a  daily  miracle 
of  moral  interchange  and  interaction.  Lovelace 
is  lost — that  is  certain.  He  is  to  be  saved  ;  but 
how  ?  By  the  very  act  which  destroyed  him, 
but  made  him  abject  in  contrition.  The  fire  which 
purifies,  the  punishment  which  cleanses  the  con- 
science   of   the    world,   which  is    irresistible,    and 


294  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSA M. 

the  acquired  insight  of  humanity,  which  is  inde- 
structible, leave  him  linked  for  ever  with  the  lot 
of  the  angel  he  has  wedded  in  the  lurid  halls  of 
Hell.  There  is  no  escape  for  him  otherwise.  Even 
God  cannot  save  him,  except  through  himself; 
and  thus  through  lier.  The  moral  interchange  is 
thus  inevitable. 

Another  paradox.  Next  to  the  man  I  have 
blest,  the  man  I  have  cursed  is  nearest  to  me 
of  all  human  creatures.  So  surely  as  I  am  bound 
to  the  man  I  love  am  I  bound  to  the  man  I  hate. 
He  has  become  a  part  of  me  ;  though  all  the  rest 
of  the  world  may  be  a  blank  to  me,  I  am  certain 
of  him.  Every  struggle  I  make  against  my 
enemy,  every  blow  I  strike  him  in  the  face, 
brings  him  closer  into  my  life.  This,  indeed,  is 
Sentiment,  but  it  is  Law.  It  is  a  thought  for 
fools  to  laugh  and  scoff  at,  but  it  is  as  scientifically 
verifiable  as  any  law  of  Selection  based  upon  the 
fossils  of  extinct  species.  And  the  closer  my 
enemy  clings  around  me,  the  more  I  shudder  at 
what  seems  to  me  his  moral  hideousness,  the  more 
terrible  grows  his  power  upon  me.  In  my  despair 
I  curse  him,  I  curse  Humanity,  I  curse  the  cruel 
Law^  of  Life.  I  struggle  upward,  and  he  holds 
me  down  ;  and  I  find  that  to  rise  at  all  I  must  take 
him  with  me.  At  last,  out  of  my  despair,  comes 
insight.  I  see  that  he,  too,  is  struggling,  down- 
ward perhaps,  but  struggling  inevitably  in  the 
throes  of  Evolution.      I  see  my  own  sorrows,  my 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM,  295 

own  meanness,  my  own  misery,  reflected  in  him  ; 
nay,  I  see  my  own  '  self,'  as  in  a  mirror,  looking 
out  of  him.  There  is  no  other  way — I  must  take 
him  with  me  or  perish  utterly.  His  life  has 
become  a  part  of  mine.  Then  we  cling  together, 
and  cry  for  help,  for  mercy,  for  Light !  Darkly, 
dimly,  I  begin  to  know  that  he  is  helping  me, 
that  he,  too,  feels  the  piteousness  of  our  repulsion 
for  each  other.  I  save  him  ;  I  have  saved  myself 
The  deadlier  the  wrong  that  I  have  done  him, 
or  that  he  has  done  me,  the  more  inextricable 
become  our  thoughts,  our  conditions.  This  is  the 
Law  of  Sentiment  which  saved  Lovelace.  This  is 
the  Law  of  God  which  made  the  violated  and  the 
victim  man  and  wife.  This  is  the  paradox  which 
redeems  the  world. 

*  Very  foolish,  very  absurd  !'  says  the  young 
lady,  who,  my  critic  tells  me,  will  not  go  to  a 
theatre  unless  she  is  to  laugh,  not  to  cry  ;  in  fact, 
as  she  adds,  '  very  sentimental.'  But  the  theory  / 
is  not  one  developed  a  priori ;  it  is  founded  on 
what  Professor  Huxley  terms  'grovelling  among 
facts.'  No  living  man  has  yet  struck  a  blow  which 
did  not  injure  himself  more  than  its  object.  I 
myself  am  '  indifferent  honest,'  fond  of  tussles  with 
the  enemy,  but  this  same  Science  of  Sentiment 
has  instructed  me  that  T  have  never  had  one  real 
enemy  except  myself  But,  the  young  lady  per- 
haps adds,  '  The  idea  is  so  impracticable  !'  Well, 
so   is   the   Christianity  which  it  formularizes,  and 


296  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

Christianity,  apart  from  the  dogmas  which  dis- 
figure it,  is  recognised  even  by  modern  philosophy 
v^  as  the  highest  Ideal  of  the  human  mind.  Very 
possibly,  and  often  very  certainly,  I  do  not  love 
my  enemy  !  Well,  as  the  Yankees  express  it,  I 
have  got  to  reckon  with  him.  So  long  as  I  fail, 
says  the  Law,  I  shall  stand  still.  And  putting 
bad  temper  and  violent  passion  aside  as  really 
ephemeral,  the  task  of  recognising  the  equivalency 
of  Love  and  Hate  is,  to  a  thinking  man  in  his  sane 
moments,  fairly  easy,  after  all. 

It  is  difficult,  it  is  often  impossible,  to  live  up 
to  our  ideals  ;  none  of  us,  I  fear,  do  that,  and 
least  of  all  the  present  writer.  If  the  issue  de- 
pended on  our  own  conduct^  on  our  own  practical 
recognition  of  ethical  principles.  Sentiment  would  be 
vague  as  the  Chimsera.  Happily  the  law  of  Evolu- 
tion works  independently  of  human  consciousness, 
and  he  who  thinks  all  things  evil  is  quite  as 
surely  at  its  mercy  as  he  who  thinks  all  things 
good.      The  clearest   teaching  of  this  age  affirms 

Sat  the  evolution  of  the  race,  conditioned  uni ver- 
ily by  the  influence  of  individuals  upon  each  other, 
an  evolution  upivard.  It  is  no  mere  cant  of  little 
Bethel,  therefore,  which  tells  us  that  we  should  love 
our  enemies  ;  we  do  love  them  when  we  most  hate 
them,  through  the  inexorable  laws  of  moral  inter- 
change. As  the  poor  fellow  said  in  the  story, 
*  It  all  comes  reet  i'  the  end,'  and  the  transfusion 
of  antagonism  into  its  equivalent  affinity,  of  repul- 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  297 

sion  into  its  equivalent  attraction,  is  the  moral 
business  of  the  world.  Sentiment,  then  — the 
insight  which  enlarges  the  area'  of  human  sym- 
pathy, which  reconciles  the  divergences  of  human 
character,  which  equalizes  in  the  long-run  the 
results  of  all  human  effort  —  is  nothing  if  it  is 
not  verifiable  or  scientific  ;  but  since  all  true 
Science  is  another  word  for  Religion,  Sentiment  is 
spiritually  Sacrament — the  crowning  Sacrament  of 
daily  life. 

11. 

EMMA    wade's    martyrdom. 

In  May,  1879,  there  was  lying  in  the  county  gaol 
of  Lincoln  a  young  girl  just  respited  from  a 
sentence  of  death.  Under  what  possible  delusion 
the  jurymen  who  convicted  her  were  labouring 
when  they  found  her  guilty  of  murder  in  the  first 
degree,  I  cannot  explain  ;  possibly,  however,  they 
were  bewildered  by  the  summing-up  of  the  Judge, 
who,  according  to  the  reporters,  '  reminded  the  jury 
that  their  verdict  must .  be  based,  not  upon  their 
feelings,  but  their  judgment.'  It  seemed  to  me,  at 
all  events,  that  the  verdict  was  very  cruel,  rash, 
and  wrongs  and  that,  while  exhibiting  little  feeling, 
it  showed  no  judgment  whatever.  The  facts  were 
very  simple.  Emma  Wade,  a  domestic  servant 
and  the  daughter  of  a  police-constable,  contracted 
an  attachment  for  a  jeweller's  assistant  in  Stamford, 


298  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 


was  seduced  by  him,  and  gave  birth  to  an  illegiti- 
mate child.  At  the  time  of  the  birth  she  was 
residing  at  home,  and  the  evidence  showed  that 
she  was  gentle,  dutiful,  and  affectionate,  both  to 
her  parents  and  to  the  child.  Her  father  seems 
to  have  treated  her  kindly,  with  the  patience  of 
love,  but  it  was  proved  that  the  mother  subjected 
her  to  just  that  kind  of  persecution,  seasoned  with 
taunt  and  insult,  which  drives  a  feeble  girl  to 
despair.  She  was  daily  taunted  with  her  shame, 
and  urged  to  return  to  service.  On  the  evening 
of  April  18  her  sister,  hearing  a  scream,  rushed 
upstairs,  and  found  Emma  in  mortal  agony. 
*  Take  the  baby,'  she  cried  ;  '  I  have  poisoned  it  and 
myself  Medical  assistance  being  called  in,  the 
mother  was  recovered,  but  the  infant  died,  traces 
of  strychnine,  Prussian  blue,  and  w^heat  flour 
(elements  of  a  poison  called  *  Battle's  Vermin 
Killer ')  being  afterwards  found  in  its  stomach. 
Previous  to  taking  the  poison  the  distracted  girl 
wrote  to  Scarcliff,  her  lover,  a  long  letter  of  fare- 
well, which  I  quote  at  full  length,  certain  that 
it  forms  in  itself  a  stronger  appeal  for  mercy  than 
any  words  of  mine  : 

'  Stamford. 

'Dear  Harry, 

^  I  am  sorry  to  write  to  you.  Dear 
Harry,  I  return  your  portrait  with  a  heavy 
heart.  It's  sadder  than  I  can  express  to  any- 
one ;   but   I   have    borne    my  mother  s    treatment 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  299 

till  I  can't  any  longer.  Dear  Harry,  it  is  all 
because  father  won't  turn  me  out  in  the  streets. 
The  words  she  uttered  about  me  and  the  baby — 
they  are  too  cruel  to  express  to  you.  Dear  Harry, 
I  love  my  child  as  I  love  my  life,  but  I  can't  go 
through  the  treatment  I  am  going  through  now  ; 
my  life  is  a  complete  misery,  and  my  child's  too. 
Dear  Harry,  I  wish  to  bid  you  farewell  in  this 
world,  but  I  hope  to  meet  you  in  another,  never 
to  part  again.  I  hope  the  Lord  will  forgive  me 
and  take  me  to  a  home  of  rest.  Harry,  I  have 
one  comfort  ;  and  that  is  I  know  my  child  will  be 
happy.  So  now,  dear  Harry,  you  must  pass  me 
out  of  your  mind  and  look  for  something  brighter. 
Dear  Harry,  I  wish  to  tell  you  it  is  nothing  on 
your  part.  Dear  Harry,  my  love  is  never  vanished  : 
I  love  you  now  as  I  loved  you  at  first ;  you  (have) 
been  in  my  thoughts  from  morning  till  night.  So 
now  I  must  bid  you  farewell  for  ever.  I  hope  you 
may  enjoy  happiness  in  this  world  and  the  next, 
too.  My  heart  is  too  full  to  speak  all,  so  good-bye 
for  ever. 

'  Emma. 

'  Respect  Mrs.  Weatherington.  She  has  been 
a  kind  friend  to  me.  I  have  sent  you  a  piece  of 
baby's  hair.  You  won't  forget  her  name — 
Constance  May  Scarcliff.' 

It  seems  to  me,  taking  all  the  circumstances  into 


300  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

consideration,  that  a  more  beautiful  letter  was 
never  written.  In  its  infinite  simplicity  and  pathos, 
in  its  gentle  dignity  and  sorrow,  it  is  a  wonderful 
production  for  the  pen  of  a  domestic  servant. 
Note  the  tenderness  of  the  thought,  '  I  have  one 
comfort,  and  that  is  I  know  my  child  will  be  happy,' 
together  with  the  last  piteous  words,  *  I  have  sent 
you  a  piece  of  baby's  hair.'  Yet  with  this  docu- 
ment before  them,  with  the  poor  heart-broken 
martyr  herself  facing  them,  the  jurymen,  listening 
to  their  'judgment,'  not  their  *  feelings,'  brought 
in  their  verdict  of  wilful  murder. 

I  am  no  apologist  for  Infanticide.  I  have  no 
sympathy  for  the  mother,  however  troubled  and 
distressed,  who  to  save  herself  from  ignominy  or 
inconvenience  destroys  her  helpless  child.  But  for 
the  poor,  bewildered,  distracted  girl,  herself  almost 
a  child,  who  loves  her  babe  so  passionately  that 
she  cannot  bear  to  hear  it  despised  and  spoken  of 
with  cruel  scorn,  and  who,  having  no  earthly  hope, 
cries  to  God,  *  Forgive  me,  take  me — take  us  both 
— to  a  home  of  rest,'  I  felt,  as  every  true-hearted 
man  must  have  done,  pity  which  is  too  deep 
for  tears.  The  law  of  this  country,  with  curious 
inconsistency,  pronounces  suicide  to  be  a  criminal 
offence,  and  at  the  same  time  connects  with  every 
suicide  an  exculpatory  explanation  of  '  temporary 
insanity.'  The  sentiment  of  this  country  pro- 
nounces that  there  are  a  thousand  things  so  hard 
to     bear,     so     terrible     to     understand,    especially 


FL  O  TSAM  AND  JE  TSAM.  30 1 

amongst  those  classes  on  whom  the  pinch  of  life 
comes  sorest,  that  suicide  is  sometimes  the  only 
escape  from  a  great  and  seemingly  endless  diffi- 
culty. The  poor  unfortunate,  *  weary  of  breath,' 
and  '  sick  of  life's  mystery,'  has  the  sympathy  of 
every  thinking  being,  whether  her  story  be  told 
by  a  penny-a-liner  in  a  mere  newspaper  paragraph 
or  by  a  great  poet  in  an  immortal  song.  Put  the 
case  only  altered  a  very  little  :  If  a  broken-hearted 
mother,  clutching  her  child  to  her  heart,  were  to 
leap  over  Waterloo  Bridge,  and  if  when  they  drew 
her  forth  still  breathing  the  child  were  found  to 
be  dead,  who  would  not  sympathize  ?  and  if  after- 
wards the  mother  were  tried  for  murder  and 
condemned  to  death,  who  would  not  feel  his  soul 
rise  in  passionate  protestation  ?  Now,  it  really 
makes  very  little  difference,  save  to  a  poet  treating 
the  subject,  whether  the  means  of  suicide  is  found 
in  the  Thames  by  moonlight  or  in  a  wretched 
packet  of  '  Battle's  Vermin -Killer.'  The  offence, 
the  motive,  the  moral  responsibility,  is  the  same. 
Emma  Wade's  was  a  case  of  Suicide  pure  and 
simple.  The  poor  girl  wished  to  die,  and  she 
loved  her  baby  far  too  passionately  to  leave  it 
behind  her.  In  a  moment  of  delirium,  she  clutched 
it  to  her,  and  sank,  as  she  believed,  to  slumber, 
confident  in  the  mercy  of  God.  Her  last  thouglit 
was  of  her  darling  babe.  '  I  have  sent  you  a  piece 
of  baby's  hair.  You  won't  forget  her  name — 
Constance  May  Scarcliff.'     Her  last  thought  was 


302  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM, 

to  give  it  Ms  name,  to  lend  its  poor  memory  that 
shelter  which  she  could  not  legally  claim.  Picture 
her  agony,  her  despair,  when  they  drew  her  back 
out  of  the  very  Shadow  of  Death,  when  she  awoke, 
not  to  God's  mercy,  but  to  man  s  judgment ;  her 
babe  dead  upon  her  breast,  her  heart  broken,  her 
brain  still  stagnified  from  its  fatal  sleep.  If  ever 
woman  was  punished  for  her  sins,  if  ever  woman 
drank  the  cup  of  man's  cruelty  to  the  dregs,  that 
woman  was  Emma  Wade.  Tortured  back  to  life, 
dragged  to  prison,  pitilessly  tried,  what  must  she 
have  suffered  in  those  dreadful  days,  until  the  hour 
came  when  the  Judge  assumed  the  black  cap,  and 
sentenced  her  to  be  hanged  by  the  neck  till  she  was 
dead  1^ 

III. 

THE  APOTHEOSIS  OP  THE  GALLOWS, 

On  Tuesday  morning,  February  25,  1879,  at  eight 
o'clock,  was  performed  the  last  scene  of  a  drama  in 
which  the  British  public  had  taken  an  unpre- 
cedented interest,  which  eclipsed  in  its  attractive 
horrors  even  the  exciting  news  from  the  Cape,  and 
made  all  minor  records  of  the  prison  or  the  Divorce 
Court  seem  comparatively  stale  and  tame.  This 
drama  might  be  entitled  '  The  Life  and  Death  of 
a  Convict;  or,  The  Apotheosis  of  the  Gallows.' 
Beginning  at  Bannercross,  in  Yorkshire,  with  about 
*  Emma  Wade  was  respited. — E.B. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  303 

as    coarse    and    clumsy   a  bit  of  murder    as    ever 
awakened    ignorant    admiration,   it   passed    into   a 
series  of  episodes  of  the  most  every-day  brutality, 
until  it  glided  from  utter  commonplace  into  sudden 
romance    under    the  very  shadow   of  Death.      A 
more  uninteresting  ruffian  than  Charles  Peace  can 
scarcely  be  conceived.      A   less  dignified   criminal 
never  paid  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law.      There 
was  nothing  in  him  to  awaken  either  attention  or 
admiration,  save  his   courage  ;    and   that  courage, 
disintegrated  into  its  component  elements,  seems  to 
have    consisted    of    unparalleled     obtuseness    and 
gigantic  self-confidence.      Yet  of  this  poor  wretch, 
who  has  scarcely  one  trait  of  redeeming  manhness, 
and  whose  moral   ugliness  was  without   any   sort 
of    grandeur,    the     public     Press    actually    manu- 
factured   a    Hero.      I    say    the    Press    advisedly. 
Save  for  the  elaborate  reports  in  the  daily  papers 
and    the    wild    and    wondrous    inventions    of   the 
pictorial  weeklies,  Charles  Peace  would  have  gone 
out  of  this  world  ignored  and  despised  even  by  that 
great  criminal  class  to   which  he  belonged.      But 
ever  since  the  memorable  occasion  when  he  tried 
to  escape  from  the  railway  carriage,  he  had  been 
consecrated  to  the    penny-a-liner.      He    had  been 
described   in  various  forms  of  disguised  panegyric 
as    the     Admirable    Crichton  of    Housebreakers. 
Because  he  could  play  a  little  on  the  fiddle  and 
had  brought  together  one  or  two  musical  instru- 
ments, he  was  represented  as  a  perfect  Paganini 


304  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 


and  a  splendid  amateur  collector  of  violins.  Be- 
cause he  had  some  little  cleverness  in  mechanics 
and  had  within  him  the  amateur  engineer's  morbid 
passion  for  '  patents/  it  was  given  out  that  his 
gifts  of  invention  amounted  to  little  short  of  genius. 
Because  he  had  had  one  or  two  dirty  liaisons,  and 
in  the  sanctity  of  his  private  life  always  had  a  trull 
at  his  elbow,  he  was  pictured  as  a  criminal  Don 
Juan,  surrounded  by  Odalisques  of  splendid  infamy. 
His  character  fascinated  even  philosophers.  One 
gentle  newspaper,  the  Spectator,  accepted  the 
penny-a-liner  s  chronicle,  and  preached  a  beauti- 
ful homily  upon  it.  There  was  something  beyond 
measure  alluring  in  the  idea  of  an  unclean  old 
man  with  tremendous  intellect  and  sublime  courage, 
setting  all  the  forces  of  the  Law  at  defiance,  by 
living  all  day  the  life  of  a  respectable  elderly 
gentleman  with  one  arm,  and  all  night  the 
life  of  a  truculent  assassin  with  a  fatal  weapon. 
For  all  these  pictures,  for  all  these  mercies  of  the 
mendacious,  we  have  to  thank  the  penny-a-liner. 
There  was  no  deity  but  Peace,  and  the  penny-a- 
liner  was  his  Prophet.  So  the  great  sensation 
drama  throve,  though  its  production  on  the  public 
scene,  with  all  the  advantage  of  big  posters  and 
capital  letters,  could  be  regarded  as  nothing  short 
of  a  public  calamity. 

Now,  the  entire  thing  would  have  been  an  utter 
failure  but  for  the  introduction,  in  the  last  scene, 
of  the  Gallows.      Till  the   Shadow  of  Death  was 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  305 

actually  upon  him,  till  it  became  known  that  he 
was  really  to  be  hanged  for  his  misdeeds,  Charles 
Peace  lacked  the  crowning  consecration.  I  am 
certain  that  if  he  had  not  received  the  capital 
sentence,  if  he  had  been  simply  relegated  to  his  life 
of  penal  servitude,  the  public  would  have  been 
utterly  disgusted  with  him,  as  with  one  who  was  in 
some  measure  an  impostor  ;  would  have  read  with 
more  or  less  weariness  the  account  of  his  super- 
human talents,  and  would  have  waited  patiently  for 
the  advent  of  some  other  sort  of  ideal.  But  the 
Apotheosis  of  the  Gallows  was  to  come,  and  with  its 
coming  the  wretched  man  was  to  be  transfigured. 
To  the  minds  of  the  criminal  classes,  and  to  the 
minds  of  large  numbers  of  people  who  may  any  day 
become  criminal,  the  condemned  murderer  was  one 
of  the  great  Heroes  of  the  earth.  His  passage 
from  the  prison  bar  to  the  condemned  cell  was  a 
triumph,  to  be  envied,  to  be  emulated  ;  his  passage 
from  the  condemned  cell  to  the  Gallows  was  a 
splendid  transfiguration,  to  which  few  human  crea- 
tures might  aspire.  In  one  of  the  woman  Thomp- 
son's letters  she  talked  of  her  name  and  that  of  her 
paramour  living  in  the  'History  of  the  Earth M 
That  was  too  glorious  a  forethought,  with  which 
few  could  sympathize ;  for  in  the  eyes  of  the 
criminal  classes,  a  momentary  apotheosis,  with  the 
white  cap  over  the  face,  and  the  chaplain  uttering 
a  prayer,  is  enough.  To  fear  neither  man  nor 
God,  to  have  one's  hand  against  all  men,  and  to 

20 


3o6  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

*  die  game' — these  are  the  conditions  of  such  fame 
as  the  Gallows  can  give.  Fulfilling  these  conditions, 
despite  the  little  bit  of  religious  talk  at  the  last 
(which  many  of  his  admirers  possibly  looked  upon 
as  a  delicious  specimen  of  '  Charley's  gammon'), 
Charles  Peace  touched  the  heights  of  criminal 
greatness.  Anyone  passing  through  the  by-ways 
of  London  after  the  execution  might  have  heard 
the  popular  expletives  at  every  corner  and  in  every 
public-house.  *  Poor  old  Charley !'  '  Well,  he's 
gone  at  last,  and  he  died  game.'  *  He  was  a  rare- 
pluck'd  one,  he  was  !'  *  It'll  be  a  long  time  before 
we  see  such  another !'  Not  a  Bill  Sykes  in  Seven 
Dials  but  drew  a  great  breath,  and  asked  himself, 

*  Shall  I  ever  cover  myself  with  such  glory,  and 
have  all  the  newspapers  talking  about  me,  and  all 
the  shops  full  of  my  portraits  ?'  Yes,  the  last 
scene  was  an  ovation.  The  effect  of  the  Gallows  in 
the  background  was  stupendous,  and  the  triumph 
of  the  Hero  of  the  Drama  was  complete. 

If  anything  could  add  to  Peace's  glory  in  the 
eyes  of  his  tumultuous  audience,  it  was  his  own 
last  confession — that  he  had  been  guilty  of  another 
murder,  and,  with  delicious  humour,  had  managed 
to  get  another  man  sentenced  to  death  in  his 
place  I  Better  still,  the  murdered  man  was  a 
policeman  !  True,  there  was  a  little  weakness  in 
confessing  at  all ;  it  would  have  been  more  heroic 
to  have  died  holding  his  tongue,  and  leaving  the 
other   condemned   man    to   his    fate.      But,    taken 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  307 

altogether,  the  thing  was  a  rich  joke,  and  a 
crowning  feather  in  *  Charley's'  cap.  He  might 
now  say,  with  Shakespeare  : 

'  If  'twere  now  to  die 
'Twere  now  to  be  most  happy ;  for,  I  fear, 
My  soul  hath  her  content  so  absolute 
That  not  another  comfort  like  to  thic. 
Succeeds  in  unknown  fate.' 

Thenceforward  immortality  was  secure  ;  even  the 
penny-a-liner  could  not  make  it  any  safer.  The 
path  to  the  Gallows  was  'roses  all  the  way.' 
Nothing  more  was  needed  than  to  '  die  game,'  and 
the  denouement  would  approach  sublimity. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  present  purpose  to  open  up 
the  old  discussion  concerning  capital  punishment. 
My  present  concern  is  rather  with  the  state  of  jour- 
nalism which  renders  the  apotheosis  of  the  Gallows 
possible.  When  nearly  every  one  of  our  leading 
dailies  devotes  more  or  less  of  its  space  to  recording 
the  daily  sayings  and  doings  of  a  commonplace 
criminal ;  when  one  penny-a-liner  vies  with  another 
in  piling  on  the  agony,  and  making  what  is  essentially 
vulgar  and  hideous  assume  the  hues  of  poetry  and 
fascination  ;  when  the  affairs  of  the  Nation  and  the 
state  of  the  Empire  sink  into  insignificance  (in  the 
newspaper  proprietor's  eyes)  by  the  side  of  the 
maunderings  of  a  poor  murderer,  it  is  really  time 
to  protest.  The  Fourth  Estate  has  a  duty  to 
perform.  If  it  is  to  be  respected  as  a  power  in  the 
country,  it  must  learn  to  respect  its  readers,  not  to 


3o8  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

regale  them  with  the  garbage  of  the  '  Newgate 
Calendar/  The  conductors  of  the  sensational 
papers  aver  that  they  are  bound  to  give  such 
records  because  readers  demand  them,  and 
because  they  would  in  any  case  be  given  else- 
where. The  answer  to  the  first  statement 
is  that  readers  are  only  too  willing  to  accept 
whatever  is  given  to  them  by  their  journalistic 
guides ;  to  the  second,  that  readers  who  love 
garbage  should  be  left  to  find  it,  for  themselves,  in 
the  literature  of  the  slums.  But  the  truth  is  that 
no  one  gains  by  the  apotheosis  of  the  Gallows  save 
the  newspaper  proprietor  and  the  penny-a-liner. 
I  regret  to  say  it,  but  these  two  worthies  are  in 
a  conspiracy  to  prostitute  the  Press,  and  to  sow 
crime  broadcast,  by  glorifying  the  criminal.  We 
cannot  now  tell  what  evil  seed  their  latter-day 
performances  bring  forth ;  in  the  meantime,  the 
character  of  Journalism  is  degraded,  and  no  English 
journalist  can  remember  without  a  feeling  of  shame 
and  humiliation  the  glorification  of  Charles  Peace. 

IV. 

THE  DEFEAT  OF  THE  TOTAL  ABSTAINER. 

That  lively  old  water-drinker  of  genius,  Mr.  George 
Cruikshank,  who  played  '  Hamlet'  tn  amateur  at 
fifty,  and  could  dance  you  a  break-down  and  double- 
shuffle  in  his  grand  climacteric,  would  have  been 
hotly  indignant  if  he  could  have  lived  to  become 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  309 

familiar  with  certain  recent  aspects  of  the  great 
Temperance  Question.  In  a  picture  which  com- 
bined a  maximum  of  moral  truth  with  a  minimum 
of  artistic  taste,  he  tried  to  drive  poor  humanity 
once  and  for  ever  away  from  the  Bottle  ;  and  he 
was  not  much  daunted  when  a  wine-loving  humorist 
retaliated  with  an  equally  horrible  caricature 
representing  the  hideous  creatures  to  be  seen  in  a 
Drop  of  Water  magnified  under  the  microscope. 
For  a  considerable  period  the  teetotalers  have 
really  been  having  the  best  of  it.  Their  wonder 
of  stump  orators,  Mr.  J.  B.  Gough,  having  by 
strictly  abstaining  from  stimulants  attained  a 
patriarchal  beard  and  a  stentorian  power  of  lung, 
had  made  the  licensed  victualler  tremble,  from 
Land's  End  to  John  o'  Groat's.  Following  in  the 
wake  of  this  noisy  platitudinarian,  numberless  bad 
and  good  physicians  have  had  an  epidemic  of 
abstinence.  Phy&icians,  like  other  people,  or, 
rather,  more  than  other  people,  are  subject  to 
periodical  crazes.  Now  it  is  a  craze  for  bromide 
of  potassium,  or  some  other  panacea ;  again,  as 
recently,  it  is  a  craze  against  all  sorts  of  intoxicating 
liquors.  Happily,  the  reaction  has  at  last  set  in, 
and  the  leading  doctors  of  the  day  have  banded 
together  to  put  down  that  most  irrepressible  and 
pernicious  of  all  propagandists,  the  Total  Ab- 
stainer. After  the  remarkable  series  of  articles 
which  appeared  in  the  Contemporary  Review — a 
series  which  must  have  done  incalculable  good,  and 


31  o  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

for  which  society  has  reason  to  be  grateful  to  the 
able  editor — the  advocates  of  Total  Abstinence 
can  scarcely  have  another  word  to  say.  When 
such  high  living  authorities  as  Sir  James  Paget, 
Sir  William  Gull,  Dr.  Risdon  Barnett,  Dr.  Rad- 
cliffe,  and  Mr.  Brudenell  Carter,  all  spoke  more  or 
less  in  favour  of  alcohol,  the  consensus  of  testimony 
was  overpowering ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  after 
this,  and  at  least  for  a  time,  we  may  be  spared  the 
familiar  legend  of  the  Total  Abstainer  who  died 
triumphantly  in  his  bed  at  eighty,  after  having  kept 
all  the  commandments,  and  drunk  nothing  stronger 
than  toast  and  water. 

And  yet,  in  reading  those  remarkable  articles, 
I  was  struck  by  nothing  so  much,  at  a  first  glance, 
as  by  the  overmastering  moral  influence  of  that 
fierce  and  frenzied  being,  the  Total  Abstainer,  over 
even  the  tolerably  impassive  medical  experts.  So 
potent  is  enthusiasm,  and  so  great  is  organization, 
that  the  doctors  of  the  day  felt  strange  diffidence 
and  hesitation  in  giving  Total  Abstinence  the  lie 
direct.  Sometimes,  conscious  of  a  wild  water- 
drinker's  eye  upon  them,  they  became  almost 
timorous,  and  murmured  with  Sir  William  Gull, 
*  But  though  the  use  of  alcohol  in  moderation  may 
be  beneficial '  (he  had  just  asserted  roundly,  by  the 
way,  that  it  was  beneficial),  '  I  very  much  doubt 
whether  there  are  not  some  kinds  of  food  which 
might  take  its  place ' ;  and  he  adds,  vacillating 
feebly,  '  If  I  am  myself  fatigued  with  overwork,  I 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  311 


eat  raisins,  instead  of  drinking  wine.'  Sometimes, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  gathered  courage  to  boldly 
defy  the  water-drinker,  and  cry  with  Dr.  Moxon, 
and  Ecclesiastes,  '  Be  not  righteous  overmuch, 
neither  make  thyself  overwise.'  But  in  all  the 
cases  under  consideration,  one  perceived  how  strong, 
almost  intimidating,  was  the  power  of  the  virtuous 
teetotaler  over  the  respectable  medical  profession, 
and  how  much  courage  it  required  to  speak  the 
sober  truth  in  the  face  of  such  a  tremendously 
black-coated  combination.  This  did  not  prevent 
Dr.  Moxon  asserting  roundly  that  Teetotalers,  as  a 
body,  are  ^  sensitive,  good-natured  people,  of  weak 
constitution  !'  For  my  own  part,  I  rather  quarrel 
with  the  adjective  'good-natured.'  Your  un- 
compromising, proselytizing,  pugnacious  teetotaler 
is  too  much  of  a  murmuring  and  too  little  of  a 
good  fellow.  He  approaches  the  collective  in- 
telligence of  the  community  as  a  priest  too  often 
approaches  the  blacks,  and  arguments  failing,  is 
ready  at  any  moment  to  resort  to  excommunication. 
It  is  not  to  be  supposed  for  a  moment  that  the 
doctors  expressed  any  doubts  of  the  destructive 
effects  of  alcohol  in  excess.  What,  for  example, 
can  be  more  terribly  true  than  the  following  picture 
of  the  fate  of  the  inveterate  drinker  ? — 

*  When  the  sot  has  descended  through  his  chosen  courcse  of  im- 
becility, or  dropsy,  to  the  dead-house,  Morbid  Anatomy  is  ready 
to  receive  him— knows  him  well.  At  the  post-mortem  she  would 
say,  "  Liver  hard  and  nodulated.  Brain  dense  and  small ;  its 
covering   thick."     And  if  you  would  listen  to  her  unattractive 


312  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

but  interesting  tale,  she  would  trace  throughout  the  sot's  body 
a  series  of  changes  which  leave  unaltered  no  part  of  him  worth 
speaking  of.  She  would  tell  you  that  the  once  delicate,  filmy 
texture  which,  when  he  was  young,  had  surrounded  like  a  pur« 
atmosphere  every  fibre  and  tube  of  his  mechanism,  making  him 
lithe  and  supple,  has  now  become  rather  a  dense  fog  than  a  pure 
atmosphere  : — dense  stuff,  which,  instead  of  lubricating,  has  closed 
in  upon  and  crushed  out  of  existence  more  and  more  of  the  fibres 
and  tubes,  especially  in  the  brain  and  liver  :  whence  the  im- 
becility and  the  dropsy.' 

The  only  comment  to  be  made  on  this,  perhaps, 
is  that  inveterate  tea-drinking  might  produce  quite 
as    lamentable    a    result ;    nay,    that    it   might   be 
induced  even  by  too  persistent  a  course  of  the  hot 
buttered  toast  so  much  loved  by  Mr.   Chadband. 
But  Dr.   Moxon,  the  physician  to  whom  we  owe 
that  terrible  picture,  and  whose  paper,  with  all  its 
wild  and  sometimes  foolish  language,  was  the  finest 
of  the  whole  series,  only  dissects  the  demented  sot 
in  order  to   martyr  the  delirious  teetotaler.      He 
tells  us,  with  sly  unction,  of  the  case  of  the  gentle- 
man who,  having  consulted  a  '  great  authority/  and 
been  told  to  ^  live  on  fish  and  wholemeal  bread  and 
to  drink  water,'  had  done  so  for  two  years,  with  the 
result  that  he  looked  a  compound   of  water,  fish, 
and  wholemeal !      He  tells  us  also,  with  no  little  ire 
against  the  Band  of  Hope,  of  the  '  honest  working 
cooper,'  who  injured  his  ankle  with  one  of  his  tools, 
whose  constitution  became  involved  in  fever,  and 
who,  when  ordered  to  take  stimulants,  refused  to 
touch    anything    containing    alcohol,    and   died    in 
consequence   in   a  few  days.      Dr.   Moxon  is,  as  I 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  313 

suggested,  a  wild  writer,  and  his  article  was  verbose 
and  eccentric,  but  he  uttered  terrible  truths.  His 
picture  of  the  effect  of  alcohol  in  ^weakening 
common-sense  in  opposition  to  individuality'  was 
masterly.  '  The  power  of  alcohol  in  this  world/ 
he  affirmed,  *  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  keeps  down 
the  oppressive  power  of  others,  and  of  their 
common-sense,  over  the  individual  sense,  and  so 
makes  a  man  better  company  to  himself  and  others.' 
He  followed  out  the  argument  in  a  style  as 
convincing  as  it  was  luminous  ;  and  I  think  his 
reasoning  had  more  effect  on  thinking  people  than 
many  of  the  pregnant  truisms  which  seemed  to 
form  the  philosophy  of  Drs.  Paget  and  Gull. 


THE  CARNIVAL  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

On  the  25th  of  January,  1759 — that  is  to  say, 
a  little  over  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago — one 
of  the  most  free  and  precious  Beings  that  ever  was 
born  to  wear  the  poetic  mantle  first  drew  breath  in 
a  humble  cottage  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  the 
Scottish  town  of  Ayr.  He  himself  has  recorded 
the  event  in  one  of  the  most  spirited  of  his  songs  : 

*  Our  monarch's  hindmost  year  but  one 
Was  five  and-tvventy  years  begun, 
*Twas  then  a  blast  o'  Janwar  win' 
Blew  hansel  in  on  Robin. 


314  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

'  The  gossip  keekit  in  his  loof, 
Quo'  she,  "  Wha  lives  will  see  the  proof, 
This  waly  boy  will  be  nae  coof — 
I  think  we'll  ca'  him  Kobin."  ' 

The  remainder  of  the  song,  with  its  references  to 

*  misfortunes  great  and  sma' '  to  come,  and  the  love 

the    poet    would    bear    to    the    female    kind,    was 

singularly    truthful     and     characteristic.       Robert 

Burns  lived  to  enjoy  a  little  tawdry  personal  fame, 

to    be    overridden   by   misfortunes    in    their    most 

squalid  and  wretched  shape,  and   to  leave  to  his 

country  a  great  legacy  of  noble  Song.     But  one 

fact  I  wish  particularly  to  dwell  upon,  for  in  it  lies 

the  moral  of  this  brief  note  :   Burns  was  too  free 

and  true  for  his  generation,  and  he  died  of  a  broken 

heart  on  account  of  its  neglect.     Who  has  not  read, 

and  who  does  not  remember,  that  infinitely  pathetic 

anecdote  told  by  Mr.  Lockhart,  as  told  to  him  by 

David  MaccuUoch,  of  how,  one  summer  day,  Burns 

was  walking  alone  on  the  shady  side  of  a  street  in 

Dumfries,  while  the   opposite   side  was   gay  with 

groups  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  going  to  a  county 

festivity,  not  one  of  whom  would  recognise  him. 

MaccuUoch  accosted  him,  and  asked  him  to  cross 

the  street ;   but  Burns  answered,   '  Nay,  nay,  my 

young  friend — that's  all  over  now';  and  then  quoted 

in  a  broken  voice  the  lines  of  Lady  Grizzel  Baillie's 

ballad  : 

*  0  were  we  young,  as  we  once  hae  been, 
We  suld  hae  been  galloping  down  on  yon  green, 
And  linking  it  over  the  lilywhite  lea. 
And — ivere7ia  my  heart  lights  I  wad  dee  /' 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM,  315 

Only  a  little  time  before  the  poor  Ploughman  had 
been  the  lion  of  the  hour  ;  but,  as  he  truly  said, 
that  was  'all  over.'  The  ignorant  gentry  and 
drunken  squirearchy  of  the  south  of  Scotland  were 
tired  of  his  splendid  manhood,  his  fearless  honesty, 
and  his  simple,  independent  ways. 

Now,  Robert  Burns  was  a  great  man  and  a  great 
poet,  and  the  influence  of  his  truly  tremendous 
satiric  and  lyrical  genius  has  been  one  of  the  great 
factors  in  the  disintegration  of  Scottish  superstition)^ 
The  '  Unco  Guid'  still  exist,  but  his  colossal' 
caricature  of  them  has  thinned  and  is  thinning 
their  ranks  year  after  year.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult 
to  imagine  what  Scotland,  with  its  gravitation 
towards  the  Sabbatarian  and  the  sunless,  would 
have  become,  without  such  forces  as  scatter  fire  all 
over  the  poems  and  songs  of  Burns  and  his  pupils. 
Unfortunately  the  very  strength  of  this  poet,  and 
the  very  excess  of  his  revolt  against  convention  and 
other- worldliness,  led  to  some  literary  performances 
of  doubtful  value.  Perhaps  the  least  interesting  of 
his  poems  are  those  which  are  purely  Bacchanalian. 
It  was  quite  natural  for  him  to  sing  defiantly  and 
wildly  in  praise  of  '  guid  Scots  drink,'  and  to  pledge 
openly,  in  brimming  poetic  bumpers,  the  cause  of 
Freedom  and  Plainspeaking.  He  was  a  convivial 
creature,  and  his  conviviality  was  that  of  a  fearless 
and  liberal  nature,  overflowing  with  love,  and  honest 
as  the  day.  But  what  was  to  some  extent  a  virtue 
in  him  has  become,  to  my  mind,  a  very  curious 


3i6  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

vice  in  his  disciples.  The  fact  is,  Scotchmen  seem 
to  have  granted  Burns  his  apotheosis  chiefly  on 
account  of  its  being  an  excuse  for  the  consumption 
of  Whisky.  So  they  celebrate  his  Birthday.  So 
they  fill  their  glasses,  hiccup  '  Auld  Langsyne/  and 
cry  in  chorus  : 

'  Robiu  was  a  roviii'  boy, 

Raiitin'  rovin',  rantin'  rovin' ; 
Robin  was  a  rovin'  boy, 
Rantin'  rovin'  Robin !' 

The  drunken  squirearchy,  whose  progenitors  broke 
the  poet's  heart,  and  who,  if  the  poet  were  alive 
now,  would  break  his  heart  again,  are  full  of 
enthusiasm  for  his  memory.  Even  some  of  the 
more  liberal-minded  ministers  of  the  Gospel  join  in 
the  acclaim.  Farmers  and  shepherds,  factors  and 
ploughmen,  all  come  together  on  the  one  great 
occasion  to  honour  the  bard  whom  everybody  can 
understand,  because  his  synonym  is  the  Whisky 
Bottle.  They  weep  over  his  woes ;  they  smack 
their  lips  over  his  satire ;  they  shriek  at  his 
denunciations,  and  they  murmur  his  songs.  Burns 
or  Bacchus — it  is  all  one.  The  chief  point  is  that, 
now  or  never,  there  is  an  excuse  for  getting  '  reeling 
ripe'  or  '  mortal  drunk.'  It  is  poetic,  it  is  literary, 
it  is — hiccup  ! — honouring  the  Muses.  Any  frenzy, 
however  maniacal,  is  justifiable  under  the  circum- 
stances. '  Glorious  Robin !'  Pledge  him  again 
and  again,  pledge  him  and  bless  him  ;  and  when 
you  can't  pledge  him  upright,  pledge  him  prone,  as 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  317 

you  lie,  with  your  fellow  Burns-worshippers,  under 
the  table. 

I  am  sorry  to  say  it,  I  am  sorry  to  utter  one 
word  which  might  seem  to  deny  the  beneficent 
influence  of  noble  poetry  and  a  surprising  poet,  but 
I  believe  this  Burns  -  worship  to  be  worth  — 
exactly  the  amount  of  bottles  emptied  in  its 
celebration.  I  will  go  further,  and  affirm  that 
Burns  himself,  were  he  living,  would  be  the  first 
to  launch  his  fiery  satire  at  such  a  sham.  The 
sham  brotherly-kindness,  the  sham  tears,  the  sham 
unction,  and  the  sham  sensation  of  being  poetic, 
mean  no  more  than  other  forms  of  tipsiness,  and 
so  far  from  bringing  honour  to  a  poet  make  his 
apotheosis  a  farce.  I  know  well  that  deep  in  the 
heart  of  Scotland  there  lies  a  well  of  pure  and 
abiding  gratitude  to  Robert  Burns,  but  I  doubt 
very  much  if  those  who  love  the  poet  best  and 
study  his  works  most  tenderly  are  to  be  found  in 
the  ranks  of  those  who  stand  before  his  shrine  in 
the  public-house.  I  may  be  wrong,  and  if  so  I 
speak  under  correction,  but  I  should  fancy  that 
Scotchmen  might  discover  other  and  better  op- 
portunities for  exhibiting  that  queer  conviviality 
which  does  not  abide  in  them  gently,  as  in  other 
men,  but  seizes  them  spasmodically  on  festive 
occasions,  like  a  kind  of  St.  Vitus's  Dance.  It 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  just  this  dram-drinking  side 
of  Burns's  genius  which  they  ought  to  conceal,  or 
at  least  to  forget.    No  one  with  any  tenderness  can 


3i8  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

think  of  Burns's  story — of  his  ghastly  fits  of 
conviviality,  of  his  cruel  wrongs,  of  his  broken 
heart — without  real  tears,  not  the  maudlin  tears 
of  semi  or  complete  intoxication.  I  am  scarcely 
overstepping  the  mark  when  I  add,  what  all  men 
know,  that  the  weakness  of  Burns  was  his  own 
readiness  to  yield  to  the  same  kind  of  false  en- 
thusiasm which  is  in  vogue  among  so  many  of  his 
disciples.  He  himself  sounded  the  shallows  of  his 
own  nature  well,  though  he  said  little  of  its  divine 
depths,  in  his  own  '  Epitaph'  : 

*  The  poor  inhabitant  below 
Was  quick  to  Jearn,  and  wise  to  know, 
And  keenly  felt  the  freendly  glow, 

And  softer  flame ; — 
But  thoughtless  follies  laid  him  low, 

And  stained  his  name.' 

He  too  often  mistook  excitement  for  inspiration, 
and  rushed  into  revolt  for  its  own  sake  ;  but  he 
would  have  been  the  first  to  perceive  the  folly  and 
the  cruelty  of  selecting  for  admiration  and  imitation 
only  one  side,  and  that  side  the  worst,  of  a  great 
man's  character.  If  he  could  be  present  in  the 
spirit  at  a  few  of  the  gatherings  held  annually  in 
his  name,  and  if  he  could  then  flit  away  to  some 
annual  gatherings  of  the  '  unco  guid,'  he  would  be 
troubled  to  perceive  that  both  those  who  love  and 
those  who  hate  him  are  worshipping  the  same  fetish 
— a  whisky  bottle.  It  is  a  pity,  a  very  great 
pity,  that  so  much  enthusiasm  should  be  spilt  about 
on  a  single  evening,  or  on  special  occasions.     Were 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  319 


I  a  Scotch  poet,  living  or  dead,  I  should  prefer  a 
very  little  sober  appreciation  to  any  amount  of 
drunken  idolatry  ;  and  I  should  not  care  to  gauge 
the  height  of  my  success  by  the  depth  of  degrada- 
tion into  which  I  had  plunged  my  votaries.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  the  poet  who  taught,  as  the  flower 
of  his  human  experience,  that  'prudent,  cautious 
self-control  is  Wisdom's  root,'  should  have  some 
fitter  temple  than  a  tavern,  and  some  kindlier 
consecration  than  the  maudlin  applause  of  maniacs 
in  all  stages  of  alcoholic  delirium. 

YI. 

BENEFICENT     '  MURDER '  (l)."^ 

Amid  the  storm  of  popular  indignation  over  the 
horrors  of  the  recent  execution  by  electricity,  one 
curious — and  to  me  most  significant — circumstance 
appears  to  have  been  overlooked.  Simultaneously 
with  the  news  of  Kemmler  s  judicial  torture  in 
the  interests  of  Science,  we  have  received  from 
America  the  news  that  Count  Tolstoi's  '  Kreutzer 
Sonata,'  and  other  '  immoral '  books,  have  been 
suppressed  in  the  interests  of  Morality.  It  has 
not,  possibly,  occurred  to  many  that  there  is  any 
other  than  an  accidental  connection  between  those 
two  recent  events  ;  but  to  my  mind  they  are  only 

*  The  two  letters  under  this  title  are  reprinted  from  the  Daily 
Telegrurph,  where  they  appeared  immediately  after  the  execution 
of  Kemmler. 


320  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

two  aspects  of  the  same  social  question,  two 
strange  results  of  the  same  political  force  which 
I  have  on  a  former  occasion  called  *  Providence 
made  Easy.'  Both  the  conduct  of  life  and  its 
duration  are  regulated,  for  the  time  being,  by 
the  pragmatic  sanction  of  the  Legislator.  All 
other  sanctions  are  temporarily  abolished.  The 
reverence  for  human  life,  for  the  human  body, 
has  departed  with  the  reverence  for  the  Soul,  for 
Freedom,  for  individual  hope  and  aspiration  ;  and, 
under  the  same  cloak  of  empirical  knowledge, 
Morality  and  Science  shake  hands.  Was  I  not 
justified,  then,  in  asserting  that  our  modern  Trades 
Union  of  scientists  and  materialists  was  merely  a 
survival  of  the  old  Calvinism — that  Calvinism 
which,  ever  since  honest  John  triumphed  in  the 
burning  of  Servetus,  has  been  '  cruel  as  the 
grave ' ? 

How  much  further  will  the  appetite  for  carnal 
knowledge,  the  lust  for  verification,  lead  the 
creature  who  loudly  vaunts  his  descent  from  the 
anthropoid  ape,  and  who  looks  forward  to  the 
dawning  aeon  of  the  new  god.  Humanity  ?  Every- 
where the  beneficent  Demagogue,  who  would  regu- 
late the  growth  of  individual  evolution,  who  would 
experimentalize  on  the  living  subject,  from  the 
beast  that  crawls  to  the  beast  that  stands  upright, 
is  busily  at  work,  and  the  voice  of  the  Legisla- 
ture says,  '  Well  done  '/  While  the  cynic  in  the 
market-place    loudly    proclaims    the    death   of  all 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  321 

human  hope  and  aspiration,  while  even  the  Judge 
on  the  bench  accepts  the  destruction  of  Rehgion, 
but  utters  a  pharisaic  '■  If  we  can't  be  pious,  let  us 
at  least  be  moral,'  the  scientific  jerry -builder  con- 
structs his  lordly  pleasure-house  out  of  the  stones 
of  dead  creeds.  The  ethics  of  the  dissecting-room 
and  the  torture-chamber  replace  the  instincts  of 
the  human  conscience,  which  conscience,  if  forced 
evolution  continues  to  prevail,  will  soon  become 
a  mere  register  of  average  human  prejudices. 
Meantime,  having  disintegrated  all  laws  in  suc- 
cession, we  remain  at  the  mercy  of  the  empirical 
laws  of  Demogorgon.  To  talk  through  the  tele- 
phone or  to  talk  into  the  phonograph  is  to 
penetrate  the  mysteries  of  Nature,  and,  heedless 
of  the  bolts  of  Zeus  and  kindred  gods,  we  exult 
over  Mr.  Edison's  bottled  thunder. 

All  this  would  not  matter  much  if  the  tyrannical 
will  of  the  new  Science  and  new  Morality  would 
suffer  us  to  breathe  in  peace,  and  if  the  New 
Journalism,  talking  the  shibboleth  of  Science  and 
Morality,  would  leave  our  ijersonal  evolution  alone. 
But  we  are  being  legislated  for,  not  only  in  the 
Senate,  but  in  the  Vestry  ;  not  only  by  the  County 
Councilman,  but  by  the  Penny-a-liner.  With  what 
result,  may  I  ask  ?  With  the  result  that  every 
day  men  and  women  are  growing  more  indifferent 
and  more  mechanical,  and  that  a  nation  of  freemen 
is  being  transformed  into  a  nation  of  sanitary  prigs. 
If   I   may   use   the   expression,    we   are   becoming 

21 


322  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

Teutonized ;  the  peculiarity  of  the  Teuton  being 
that,  although  free,  he  forges  his  own  fetters,  and 
voluntarily  accepts  his  slavery  as  a  moral  and 
political  machine.  For  my  own  part,  I  find  that 
I  cannot  procure  certain  books  without  police 
supervision ;  that  I  cannot  see  a  play  or  write 
one  without  being  guided  for  my  good  by  a  legal 
supervisor ;  that  I  cannot  put  my  hand  in  my 
pocket  to  assist  a  beggar  without  being  looked 
at  askance  by  the  Commissioners  of  Lunacy  ;  that 
I  cannot  use  my  own  judgment  even  in  a  literary 
contract  without  being  pounced  upon  and  bullied 
iby  a  trades  union  of  authors  ;  that,  in  a  word,  I 
■can  do  nothing,  think  nothing,  be  nothing,  without 
some  sort  of  organized  social  intervention.  As 
for  the  right  of  private  judgment,  it  is  rapidly 
becoming  a  farce.  Men  no  longer  think  or  judge 
for  themselves ;  they  do  it  all  by  machinery. 
There  are  cheap  manuals,  mechanical  guides,  to 
classify  and  regulate  even  my  tastes  and  likings. 
Little  trade  unions  innumerable  make  up  the 
corporate  trades  union,  the  State.  And  the  indi- 
vidual member  of  society,  the  thinking  and  see- 
ing man,  becomes  either  a  martyr  or  part  of  a 
Machine. 

The  apogee  of  the  moon  of  Dulness,  of  Mob 
Rule,  of  Beneficent  Legislation,  is  reached  at  last, 
when  the  free  people  of  America,  in  their  zeal  for 
the  public  good,  furnish  the  world  with  the  edify- 
ing spectacle  of  a  judicial  murder  and  torture  by 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  323 

electricity,  and  when,  in  the  same  breath,  they 
consign  the  work  of  a  daring  thinker  to  the  civic 
pit  for  rubbish.  Let  me  say  in  this  connection 
that  I  have  no  personal  sympathy  whatever  with 
the  diseased  views  of  human  passion  taken  by 
Count  Tolstoi.  Morality  has  made  the  man,  as 
it  makes  the  Council  and  the  Legislature,  raving 
mad.  Science,  Christian  or  un-Christian,  renders 
the  individual,  as  it  renders  the  State,  insane  with 
the  pride  of  empirical  discovery,  with  the  zeal  of 
impious  verification.  And,  after  all,  we  can  verify  i; 
so  little  !  What  does  it  serve  the  lover  to  know  I 
that  his  beloved  moonlight  is  made  of  green  cheese/ 
or  magnesium  ?  How  does  it  help  human  nature' 
to  learn  that  the  beauty  it  yearns  for  fattens  on 
corruption  ?  to  be  told  that  every  happy  instinct, 
every  function  of  the  flesh,  is  dangerous,  and  to  be 
summarily  repressed  ?  The  new  scientific  Calvinism 
would  turn  the  many-coloured  picture  of  the  world 
into  one  common  black  and  white ;  would  teach 
the  maiden  to  analyze  her  first  blush,  and  the  boy 
to  dissect  his  first  love  ;  would  turn  pure  natural 
impulse  into  prurient  inquiry,  and  put  glass 
windows  into  everybody — as  in  the  famous  surgical 
case — to  show  us  the  mean  processes  of  the  Un- 
conscious. Men  who,  like  myself,  were  not  born 
^  moral ' — men  who  refuse  to  measure  themselves 
by  the  common  standard  which  regulates  social 
conduct,  and  who,  above  all,  would  secure  for  their 
fellows  perfect  freedom  of  moral  evolution,  stand 

21 — 2 


324  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

wondering  in  the  darkness  of  eclipse,  while 
Puritanism  and  espionage  conspire  against  human 
nature. 

Now,  more  than  ever,  at  this  crucial  point  of 
the  world's  history,  it  behoves  all  thinking  men  to 
cry,  with  Virchow,  Restringamur !  Do  not  per- 
mit Empiricism  to  go  too  far;  either  in  the  destroy- 
ing of  sanctions,  or  in  the  formulation  of  enactments, 
or  in  the  legalizing  of  experiments  ;  but  let  every 
man  who  thinks  he  has  a  message  speak  with  a 
free  tongue,  and  let  Art,  above  all — in  which  may 
lie  the  salvation  of  the  world — live  a  free  and 
natural  life.  The  example  of  Kemmler  should  be 
a  warning  to  everyone  of  what  beneficent  legisla- 
tion may  yet  do  for  us  in  the  interests  of  the 
State,  of  Science,  and  of  Morality  ! 

YII. 

BENEFICENT    ^  MURDER  '  (2). 

In  view  of  the  reproaches  of  some  correspondents, 
who  contend  that  they  do  not  quite  know  what  I 
mean  or  what  I  am  complaining  about,  I  find 
it  necessary  to  add  a  few  further  words  of  ex- 
planation. I  never  posed  as  a  Gnostic,  as  '  one 
who  knows,'  and  if  I  show  scant  respect  for 
authoritative  opinions,  I  feel  quite  as  little  respect 
for  any  opinions  of  my  own.  I  invariably  try,  how- 
ever, to  make  these  opinions  clear.  Since  I  appear 
to  have  failed  in  the  first  instance,  let  me  try  again. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  325 

I  am  not,  to  begin  with,  a  Socialist  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  and  I  distinguish  in 
both  the  moral  and  the  political  world  between 
sympathetic  co-operation  and  arbitrary  trades 
unionism.  I  will  combine  with  no  man,  with  no 
body  of  men,  to  dictate  absolutely  to  others  how 
they  are  to  think  and  act.  True  Socialism  I  be- 
lieve to  be  the  self-protection  of  minorities  against 
the  despotism  of  majorities,  the  self-protection  of 
individuals  against  the  tyranny  of  mob-elected 
legislators,  against  encroachments  on  the  part  of 
the  State,  of  the  Church,  of  Capital,  of  the  working 
as  well  as  of  the  governing  classes,  and  of  Society. 
False  Socialism  I  believe  to  be  the  combination  of 
organized  classes  or  communities  to  limit  the  free 
action  of  the  individual,  and  to  force  unnatural 
evolution  all  along  the  line.  A  true  Socialist 
accepts  patiently  the  inevitable  limitations  put  by 
the  community  on  his  personal  activity.  He  is 
perfectly  well  aware  that  government  is  necessary, 
and  that,  if  his  fellow-men  are  to  be  comfortable, 
he  cannot  do  just  as  he  pleases.  If  he  protests 
against  taxes,  it  is  only  when  he  considers  them 
iniquitous — e.g.,  taxes  for  foolish  wars,  for  the 
support  of  discredited  institutions,  of  unnecessary 
offices,  of  sinecures.  He  cheerfully  contributes  to 
the  lighting  and  draining  of  cities,  to  the  wages  of 
a  necessary  police,  to  the  support  of  the  helpless 
and  deserving  poor,  to  the  necessary  institutions  of 
the   State.      But  there   he  pauses.      Having  done 


326  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM, 

his  duty  as  a  citizen,  he  retires  on  his  rights  as  a 
man.  He  complains  if  he  has  to  support  a  Church 
in  which  he  has  ceased  to  beHeve,  and  contends 
that  if  his  neighbours  require  the  services  of  a 
clergyman  they  should  not  ask  hirti  to  pay  for 
them.  If  he  seeks  entertainment  he  elects  to 
choose  it  for  himself,  without  legislative  super- 
vision. If  he  likes  statues  and  pictures  of  the 
nude  (as  I  do),  he  contends  that  he  has  a  right  to 
enjoy  them,  despite  the  fact  that  they  create  nasty 
sensations  in  *  moral '  people.  So  with  Books  and 
with  the  Drama.  He  claims  a  free  choice  in  their 
selection,  no  matter  how  many  '  young  persons ' 
may  be  peeping  round  the  corner.  Despite  the 
Priests  in  Absolution  of  the  New  Journalism,  he 
protests  against  combinations  which  make  life 
hideous — e.^.,  the  inquisitorial  Newspaper.  But 
even  here  he  does  not  interfere  ;  he  only  smiles, 
and  prays  that  God  may  send  poor  Humanity  a 
better  religion  and  better  literature.  And  so  on, 
and  so  on,  to  the  end  of  the  chapter. 

I  hope  this  is  very  simple.  Well,  in  the  present 
condition  of  affairs,  how  does  the  true  Socialist — 
or,  in  other  words,  the  rational,  peace-loving  citizen 
— find  himself  treated  ? 

He  finds,  in  the  first  place,  that  false  Socialism, 
using  the  shibboleth  of  the  ^  greatest  happiness 
for  the  greatest  number,'  is,  both  here  and  in 
Germany,  bolstering  up  the  tyrannies  of  an  all- 
present  officialism.      He  finds  that  powerful  organi- 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  327 

zations  of  men  are  trying  to  legalize  in  our  cities 
what  is  in  his  sight  the  abomination  of  abomina- 
tions. He  finds  that  the  finest  course  of  action  a 
Government  can  adopt  to  repress  crimes  of  murder 
and  of  violence  is  to  imitate  them,  or  even,  as 
lately  in  America,  to  excel  their  horrors.  He 
finds  that,  by  our  marriage  laws,  men  and  womeni 
are  chained  like  beasts  together,  and  that  their 
very  despairing  effort  to  escape  from  each  other  is^ 
called  ^  collusion.'  He  finds  that  everywhere  in 
Society,  wherever  the  Puritanical  bias  prevails,  the 
simplest  and  purest  natural  functions  are  looked 
upon  as  unclean  ;  that  Morality  despises  the  body 
now,  as  Religion  despised  it  long  ago.  He  is  told 
of  the  spread  of  education  ;  he  finds  that  he  is 
being  told  merely  of  a  spread  of  half-instructed 
ignorance.  He  finds  our  leading  scientists  justifying 
War  and  Appropriation,  as  our  leading  Spiritualists 
and  Churchmen  used  to  justify  them.  He  finds 
it  dangerous,  or  at  least  incompatible,  to  express 
his  real  opinion  of  any  existing  institution,  par- 
ticularly if  that  institution  is  either  '  moral  '  or 
^  rehgious.'  He  is  not  led  to  the  stake,  but  he 
is  '■  boycotted ' ;  he  is  a  discredited  and  suspected 
person.  He  finds,  in  one  word,  that  at  every 
point  of  his  individual  advance  he  is  confronted  by 
the  mass  of  organized  cruelty  and  unintelligence. 

All  this,  of  course,  is  no  new  thing.  As  a 
child,  I  saw  Robert  Owen  stoned  for  saying  that 
Marriages    were     not    always    made    in    Heaven ! 


328  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM, 

But   at   no   period  of  history,   except  that  period 

when  false   Christianity  was  most  dominant,  have 

individuals  been  so  much  at  .the  mercy  of  a  false 

Morality.      In  literature   especially   the  extent   of 

completed  ignorance  is  something  scarcely  credible 

— ignorance   not   only   of  the  uneducated,   but  of 

the  cultivated  and  the  superfine.      To  illustrate  it 

I  need  go  no  further  than  a  recent  number  of  the 

Quarterly   Review,    where    conventional    Morality 

speaks  out  loudly  as  a  trumpet  on  the  subject  of 

the   French  nation  and  of  French  fiction.      Even 

the  School  Board,  it  appears,  has  not  killed   the 

insular     prejudice     that    every    Frenchman     is     a 

sensualist  and  every  French  book  an  outrage  on 

decency.      But  what  is  to  be  said  of  a  writer  (the 

mouthpiece  of  a  large  class,  or  we  should  not  find 

him  in  the  Quarterly)  who  lumps  Balzac,  Flaubert, 

and  Zola  together  as  writers  of  the  same  calibre, 

and  actually  affirms  that  '  Balzac  was  a  materialist, 

who  did  not  believe  in  God '  ?     Poor  Balzac  !  who 

swore  by  Godhead  and  the    Monarchy,   and    was 

so    mercilessly  roasted    for    his    leaning    to    these 

aristocracies.      '  His  (Balzac's)  only  faith  was  faith 

in  money  ;  he  is  the  supreme  artist  who  excels  in 

consummating  the  type  of  the  ignoble,  even  of  the 

cadaverous.      His  characters  are  always  intrinsically 

vicious,    and   he   anticipated   the    worst  things    of 

Zola.'      And    this     of    the    writer    who     gave    us 

'  Eugenie     Grandet,'     and     '  Cousin     Pons,'     and 

*  Modeste  Mignon,'  and  a  hundred  other  imperish- 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  329 

able  types  of  human  beauty  and  goodness.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  the  wretched  poor  flock  to  hear 
the  tumult  of  the  Salvation  Army,  when  the  rich 
and  cultured  combine  to  support  such  dismal 
howling  as  I  have  quoted,  such  utter  ignorance  of 
the  subject,  such  spasmodic  stumbling,  as  of  the 
blind  leading  the  blind  ? 

For  myself,  I  still  find  in  France  the  centre  of 
the  World's  free  thought.  The  mad  political  craze, 
the  whirl  from  one  system  to  another,  is  nothing  ; 
the  bold  and  fearless  freedom  of  the  great  French 
writers,  from  Diderot  downwards,  is  everything. 
No  matter  if  they  have  now  torn  open  the  sewers, 
as  long  ago  they  tore  down  the  superstructures  of 
society.  They  have  taught  men  to  tliink  and  fed. 
Even  Zola  among  the  shambles  is  better  than 
Chadband  among  the  churches,  better  than  the 
easy  English  novelist  who  cloaks  up  the  ulcers  of 
society,  better  than  Mr.  Chaos-come-again  and  his 
army  of  howling  teetotalers  and  Sabbatarians. 

But  I  find  I  am  wandering  away  into  criticism. 
What  I  wanted  to  point  out  was,  that  it  is  not  the 
freedom  of  individuals  we  have  to  fear,  but  the 
combinations  of  classes — the  trades  unions  of  well- 
intentioned  political  moralists,  culminating  in  the 
tyrannies  of  the  Legislature.  England  under  the 
new  Radicalism  is  growing  as  terrible  as  Sheffield 
under  Broadhead  !  We  have  too  much  legislation 
and  too  little  individual  responsibility.  Men  who 
used    to    fight    for    their    own    hands    now    cling 


33©  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

tremulously  to  the  skirts  of  officialism,  and  cry, 
'  Help  us  ;  instruct  us.  We  are  too  weak  to  help 
and  instruct  ourselves.'  Small  wonder  that,  in 
their  extremity,  they  turn  from  the  conscience  im- 
planted in  them  by  God  to  the  legerdemain  of 
Providence  made  Easy.  If  we  want  to  know 
whither  a  large  portion  of  the  community  is 
drifting,  let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  General 
Booth's  view  of  the  Millennium,  given  in  a 
publication  called  '  All  the  World.'  '  First,  we 
should  have  Hyde  Park  roofed  in,  with  towers 
climbing  to  the  stars,  as  the  world's  great,  grand, 
central  temple  !  .  .  .  And,  then,  what  demonstra- 
tions, what  processions,  what  mighty  assemblies, 
what  grand  reviews,  what  crowded  streets,  im- 
passable with  the  joyful  multitudes  marching  to 
and  fro  1  .  .  .  Five  million  hearts  would  turn  to 
God  with  voices  of  thanksgiving  and  with  shouts 
of  praise  I'"^ 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  underrate  the  good  work 
General  Booth  is  doing  in  some  directions ;  but 
take  such  a  proclamation  as  this,  and  it  is  an 
attempt  to  turn  Humanity  into  a  huge  barrel- 
organ,  with  an  accompaniment  of  '  shouting  '  per- 
formers. And  herein,  as  we  are  aware,  lies  the 
secret  of  his  triumph.  Knowing  how  little  is  done 
to  amuse  the  masses,  seeing  their  utter  wretched- 
ness and  dulness,  he  shows  them  how  to  exercise 

*  See,  further  on,  the    remarks    on    the    Social  Aid  side   of 
General  Booth's  scheme. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  331 

their  bodies  and  use  their  lungs  by  organizing  for 
one  universal  Shout.  Out  of  this  tumult,  to  which 
the  *■  tom-tom  '  of  the  poor  savage  is  music,  peace 
and  salvation  are  to  come.  Looming  in  the  near 
future  is  the  Golden  Age,  when  any  individual 
who  refuses  to  join  in  the  general  noise  will  be 
regarded  as  anti-social,  as  an  unsympathetic 
member  of  the  community.  In  the  face  of  this 
and  kindred  horrors,  we  are  asked  to  believe  that 
beneficent  and  philanthropic  Organization  is  every- 
thing, and  that  individual  peace  and  personal 
freedom  are  of  little  or  no  consequence. 

VIII. 

booksellers'  romance. 

Mr.  Rider  Haggard,  whose  own  work  in  fiction  is 
at  present  delighting  all  who  take  pleasure  in  the 
marvellous,  and  who  possesses  in  a  certain  measure 
the  imagination  of  a  poet,  has  published  in  the 
Contemporary  Review  a  diatribe  against  the  novel 
of  the  period,  the  moral  of  which  appears  to  be  : 
*  If  modern  fiction  fails  to  content  you,  try  back  to 
"  Robinson  Crusoe  ;"  and  if  home  scenery  fails  to 
inspire  you,  go  to  Africa.'  Now,  it  is  no  part  of 
my  business  to  defend  our  modern  novelists  from 
their  latest  critic,  any  more  than  it  is  to  deny  the 
novelty  and  the  charm  of  Mr.  Haggard's  own  flights 
into  easy  romance  ;  but  in  this  particular  instance 
I  looked  for   a  Daniel   come  to  judgment,  and  I 


'\ 


332  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

find  only  a  Jeremiah.      Leaving   out   of  sight  all 
that  my  clever  contemporaries  have  done  in  fiction, 
work  at  least  equal  to  the  finest  ore  ever  dug  out 
of  the   Dark   Continent,  I  want   seriously  to   ask 
if   Mr.    Haggard,    in    the   heyday    of  his    sudden 
popularity,  is  not  rather  overestimating  the  prodigy 
of  his   own   advent ;  and  whether,  after  all,    true 
Romance  has  very  much   to  do  with   thos^wild 
fancy-flights  which  transport  the  booksellers  for  a 
season,    but   alarm   the   quiet  students   of    human 
nature  ?     Romance,  if  I  understand  it  rightly,  is 
the  art  of  idealizing  the  splendid  facts  of  life,    of 
seizing  human  nature  at  its  highest,  and  present- 
ing it  in  types  of  poetic  beauty,   rather  than  the 
art  of  telling  tales  for  the  marines,  and  disseminat- 
ing the   philosophy  of    the  preposterous.      If  the 
hope  of  the  English  public  lay  in  Mr.  Haggard's 
way,  we  should  have  to  recognise  Jules  Yerne  as 
a  fine  romancist,   and  place    the    fairy    taletellers 
right  over  the   head  of  Shakespeare  ;  snatch  the 
Bible  from  its  shelf  and  substitute  the  '  Arabian 
Nights  ;'  and  instead  of  Walter  Scott  and  Charles 
Reade,  Dumas  and  Victor  Hugo,  content  ourselves 
with   the   author  of   the   wonderful  adventures  of 
Peter  Wilkins.      I  am  not,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind, 
underrating  the  author  of  '  King  Solomon's  Mines,' 
although,   if    I   were   to   pronounce  an   opinion,   I 
should    say   that    a    commonplace,    vivid,   truthful 
bit   of   work   like   '  Kidnapped '   was   really    more 
imaginative.;  but  even  Mr.  Louis  Stevenson  would 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  333 

be  the  last  man  to  maintain  that  his  work  in  this 
direction  was  a  new  departure.      The  point  I  wish 
to   insist   upon    is    that    great    fiction,    instead    of 
escaping    from    the    realm    of    common-sense  into 
that  of  pure  fancy,  throws  the  light  of  imagination 
over   that  realm  of  common-sense   in  such  a  way 
as  to  make   of   it   a   veritable   fairyland.      Nor  is 
Mr.  Haggard  in  any  way  justified  as  a  romancist 
because,  in  the   manner  of  M.    Yerne,   he  puts  in 
the   centre   of  his  domain   of   fancy   a  few  exces- 
sively prosy  and  old-fashioned  realistic  types,  such 
as  the  wonderful  Englishman  with  the  white  legs, 
the     wandering     African    chief,    and    the    hideous 
sibyl  of    innumerable   story-tellers.       He   is  quite 
within  his  right  in  escaping  human  character,  but 
if  he   were  a   true   romancist  he    would   certainly 
not  escape  it ;  and,  again,  if  he  were  a  new  as  well 
as  a  true  romancist,  he  would  leave  on  the  mind  a 
higher  and  nobler  impression  than  is  to  be  derived 
from  the  literature  written  for,    and   beloved   by, 
the  boys  of  England.      In  his  story  of  '  She,'  he 
certainly   does   show  imagination ;  but   surely   the 
whole  work   is   marred  and  spoiled  by  the  incon- 
sistency which  blends  a  good  poetical  idea,  worthy 
treatment  in  verse,  with  the  commonplace  associa- 
tions and  stereotyped  characters  so  long  familiar  in 
books  of  the  modern  marvellous  written  for  Pater- 
noster Row,  and  published  with  illustrations.      The 
idea  of  '  She  '  is  fine  ;  the  treatment,  in  spite  of 
its  cleverness,   is   not   far  beyond   the  method   of 


334  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

M.  Verne.  Instead  of  truth  irradiated  by  idealism, 
we  have  beauty  degraded  by  commonplace  ;  and  as 
a  consequence,  the  tale,  in  spite  of  all  its  clever 
workmanship,  leaves  the  impression  of  a  large 
canvas  painted  to  order.  This,  of  course,  does  not 
prevent  it  from  being  very  amusing ;  only  the  fact 
of  having  written  an  amusing  book  does  not  justify 
an  author  in  affirming  that  amusement  is  to  be  the 
prime  vocation  of  the  novelist  of  the  future. 

To  compare  great  things  with  small,  ^schylus 
is  a  true  Romancist.  When  he  deals  with  the 
great  issues  of  life,  he  uses  the  supernatural  only 
as  a  background  ;  but  his  ideas  and  his  pictures 
would  be  quite  as  true,  and  just  as  noble,  if  his 
supernatural  were  merely  an  atmosphere,  as  it 
often  is.  Homer,  perhaps,  is  more  to  the  point ; 
his  tales  of  gods  and  men  have  all  the  strength  of 
early  fable,  none  of  the  mixture  of  ancient  and 
modern  moods.  Dante  writes  romance  in  colossal 
cipher,  never  mean  and  never  small.  But  to  come 
down  to  modern  times.  Swift  is  a  romancist,  and 
Defoe  is  a  realist  ;  each  in  his  turn  is  too  wise  to 
mix  with  foreign  matter  the  elements  peculiarly 
his  own.  Sublime  human  Romance  attained  its 
zenith  in  Hugo,  who  accepted  Nature  as  she  is, 
and  craved  no  fable,  but  found  in  Nature's  own 
bosom  the  god,  the  godlike  man,  as  well  as  the 
monster  and  the  chimera.  It  is  cruel  to  Mr. 
Haggard  to  mention  him  in  connection  with  these 
masters,  but  the  man  who  coolly  relegates  Zola  to 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  335 


the  Limbo  of  the  Unclean,  and  who  indirectly  in- 
dicates his  own  form  of  art  as  higher  and  purer 
than  that  which  produced  '  Une   Page  d' Amour/ 
must  at  least  aspire  to  be  a  master.      And  with  all 
that  has   been  done   in    England   even   in    recent 
years,  Mr.  Haggard  is  discontented.      He  has  no 
good  word  to  say  for  any  of  his  elder  brethren — for 
Charles  Reade,  for  Walter  Besant,  for  the  author 
of    '  Lorna    Doone,'    or    even    for    the   author  of 
*  Alice  in  Wonderland.'     All  to  him  is  leather  and 
prunella,   except   Robinson   Crusoe,   African  cram, 
and  the  merry   boys  of  England.      Unto  this  last 
we  are  coming,  he  says,    since  the  good   Howellsi 
avails  us  not,  and  the  bad   Zola  grows   more  and\ 
more  insufferable.      The  romance  of  the  future  is 
to  justify,  not  Shakespeare,  not  Scott,  not  Dumas, 
not  Hugo,  not  Dickens,  not  Reade,  but  M.  Jules 
Verne,  Mr.  R.  M.  Ballantyne,  and  Captain  Mayne 
Reid.      For    five    shilling  pot-pourris    we    are    to 
exchange   the   oldest   school   of  Idealism    and  the 
newest    school    of    Naturalism !       The    panorama 
business,  the   book   of  travel  business,  the   highly 
coloured  showman  business,  is  to  take  the  place  of 
human    nature    and    human   passion ;    and   poetry  j 
and  prose  jumbled  together  are   to   supplant   the 
literature    of    patient    imagination.       Really   Mr. 
Andrew    Lang    and    the    Saturday    Revieiv    have 
much  to  answer   for,   unless  Mr.    Rider  Haggard, 
whom    their    praises  have  persuaded    to    this  de- 
liverance, is  laughing  at  us  in  his  sleeve. 


336  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM, 

IX. 

PROFESSOR    HUXLEY  S    MIRACULOUS    CONVERSION  (l)."^ 

T  HAVE  only  just  read,  with  feelings  of  mingled 
surprise  and  delight,  Professor  Huxley's  letter  to 
the  Times  newspaper  on  the  subject  of  the  Sal- 
vation Army  and  General  Booth.  It  is  so  sweet 
to  find  one's  self  a  true  prophet ;  and  did  I  not 
prophesy  some  little  time  ago,  in  a  contemporary, 
that  Professor  Huxley  would  soon  be  converted 
*  like  another  Saul '  ?  The  Arch-Sociologist,  the 
denier  of  the  natural  freedom  and  equality  of  man, 
the  upholder  of  '  a  statute  of  limitations  in  matters 
of  wrong-doing,'  the  denouncer  of  Freedom  as 
laissez-faire^  the  preacher  of  Providence  made 
Easy  and  special  Governmental  supervision  in  all 
departments,  now  wheels  round  in  the  very  face 
of  Mr.  Spencer,  and  cries  :  ^  I  said  so  !  Organization 
is  dangerous  !  the  safeguard  of  society  lies  in  the 
freedom  of  the  Individual !'  And  all  this  because 
one  man  of  untutored  intellect,  with  limited 
reasoning  powers  and  miraculous  powers  of  organ- 
ization, has  done  in  a  few  short  years  what  all 
the  Churches,  including  the  Church  of  Pragmatic 
Science,  have  utterly  failed  to  do — has  awakened 
the  imagination  of  the  British  Philistine  to  the 
fact  that  the  miseries  of  the  social  deposits  must 
be  reckoned  with,  and  has,  in  a  measure,  pointed 

*  The  first  of  the  following  letters  appeared  in  the  Times  and 
Daily  Chronicle^  the  second  in  the  Chronicle  only. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  337 

out  *  the  way.'  Why,  only  a  while  ago  the  mili- 
tant Professor  was  stumping  the  magazines  and 
advocating  the  possibility  of  advancing  evolution 
by  force  from  without  and  from  above  ;  was  '  per- 
secuting '  the  faithful  who  clamoured  to  be  saved 
or  damned  in  their  own  fashion  ;  and  here  he  is, 
already  struck  down  by  a  Light  from  Heaven  (or 
some  other  dwelling-place  of  the  aristocracy)  pro- 
claiming that  he,  too,  is  of  the  Faithful,  of  the 
poor  persecuted  remnant  which  '  believes  ' ! 

I  was  severely  rebuked  when  I  dared  to  defend 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  s  doctrine  of  absolute  ethics 
against  the  savage  attack  of  Professor  Huxley ; 
because  I  questioned  the  reasoning  powers,  while 
fully  admitting  the  ingenuity,  of  my  opponent. 
I  am  now,  therefore,  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma. 
Either  Professor  Huxley  was  always  rational,  or 
he  was,  all  along  the  line,  inconsistent.  If  he  was 
rational,  he  failed  to  express  his  ideas  logically ; 
and  if  he  was  inconsistent,  like  most  persecutors, 
he  needed,  besides  logic,  fuller  light  and  edification. 
With  what  fervour  did  he  argue  (in  his  favourite 
metaphorical  manner)  against  the  fatuity  which 
would  place  the  guidance  of  a  Ship  in  the  hands 
of  the  crew,  instead  of  those  of  the  Captain ; 
against  the  '  reasoned  savagery '  of  those  who 
would,  it  seemed  to  him,  uphold  the  natural 
^  rights  '  of  even  the  man-eating  tiger  !  Then  we 
wanted  leadership,  organization,  espionage  even, 
and    scientific    police ;    noiv^   all    these    things   are 

22 


338  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

perilous,  and  General  Booth,  with  his  tom-toms 
and  his  military  orders,  is  threatening  the  lives  of 
'  individual '  men.  Yesterday  Professor  Huxley 
was  championing  that  Over-legislation  which  would 
mean  the  slavery  of  all  mankind ;  to-day  he  is 
protesting  against  the  strong  men,  and  questioning 
the  would-be  legislators.  A  little  while  ago  he 
was  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  s  deadliest  opponent ; 
just  a  pirouette,  and  here  he  is  at  Mr.  Spencer  s 
feet.  Truly  a  miraculous  conversion !  All  our 
fears  were  vain.  The  protector  of  the  loaves  and 
fishes,  the  peripatetic  Providence  incarnate,  will 
harm  us  no  more.  Only  a  few  steps  further,  and 
the  Saul  of  the  status  quo  will  be  the  St.  Paul  of 
Individualism. 

Frankly,  however,  I  distrust  both  this  Saul  and 
that  other  of  the  New  Testament  as  persons  pos- 
sessing neither  great  logic  nor  trustworthy  insight 
into  human  nature.  The  converted  Persecutor  is 
sure  to  lapse  backwards  during  the  very  process 
of  edification.  And  now,  to  my  poor  judgment, 
the  Professor  Huxley  who  refuses  to  disgorge  his 
friend's  thousand  pounds,  on  the  ground  that  he 
will  not  countenance  any  form  of  social  or  religious 
'  tyranny,'  is  fully  as  suspicious  a  figure  as  the 
Professor  Huxley  who  avowed  that  '  the  equality 
of  men  before  God  was  an  equality  either  of 
insignificance  or  imperfection,'  and  that  there  was 
a  strong  argument  for  supposing  that  Force,  reason- 
ably  applied,   was  an   indispensable  factor   of  our 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM,  339 

civilization.      Am  I  wrong  in  suggesting  that,  now 
as   always,   the    pragmatic    temperament    and    the 
anti-theological  bias  has  far  more  to  do  with  Pro- 
fessor Huxley's  attitude  than  any  real  conversion 
to  the  Individualism  he  has  hated  so  cordially  and 
so   long  ?      I    may   be   wronging    a    true   convert, 
but  I  cannot  help  believing  that  Professor  Huxley 
would  be  far  less  shocked  by  the  Salvation  Army 
if  it  used  the  shibboleth  of  Science  in  lieu  of  that 
of  Christianity — if   it  were  beating   its   tom-toms 
in  the  name  of  David  Hume  instead  of  that  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.      Your  scientist  will  endure  a 
good  deal  of  noise,  a  great  deal  of  fussy  organiza- 
tion, when  the  object  is  secular,  and  not  religious. 

It    is   no    part   of  my   purpose    to   uphold   the 
scheme  of  General  Booth  ;  I  have  not  studied  it 
sufficiently  to  justify  or  condemn  it.      So  far  as  it 
involves  a  tyrannous  organization,  an  interference 
with  the  right  of  private  judgment,  an  upholding 
of  effete  superstitions,  it  has  no  sympathy  of  mine, 
and  not  all  the  approval  of  all  the  Churches  would 
induce  me  to  utter  one  word  on  its  behalf      But 
the  merest  tyro  in  history  must  see  that  Professor 
Huxley's   attempt   to   liken  it   to  the   schemes  of 
Francis  of  Assisi  and  Ignatius  Loyola   is  simply 
absurd,  illogical,  and  un instructed — worthy,  in  fact, 
of  the  mind  which  justified  Jacob  against  Esau  on 
the  ground  of  *  practical  expedience.'     For  if  one 
thing  is  clear,  it  is   that  the   religion  of  General 
Booth,   whatever   its   crude   forms  and   ordinances 

22 2 


340  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

may  be,  is  at  once  unsectarian  and  beneficent, 
practical  as  opposed  to  dogmatic.  The  use  of  the 
Christian  vocabulary  is  a  detail.  I  have  nowhere 
read  that  the  General  troubles  himself  about 
Christian  dogmas.  His  cry  has  rather  been,  'A 
truce  to  your  dogmas,  and  even  to  your  moralities  ; 
let  us  see  if  we  cannot  save  the  "  submerged 
tenth"  by  making  it  conscious  of  happy  responsi- 
bility— by  enabling  it  to  live!  The  comparison 
with  Mormonism  is  equally  unfortunate;  and,  in 
any  case,  Mormonism  is  an  institution  which  has 
existed  with  few  or  no  crimes,  no  Wars,  no  Brothels, 
and  no  ^  Hells  ' — all  accredited  ornaments  of  our 
higher  civilization.  Say  what  we  may  of  General 
Booth — and  I  myself  (horrified  by  the  clamour  in 
the  street)  have  said  some  hard  things — he  has 
struck  a  chord  of  beneficence  which  vibrates  round 
the  world  ;  he  has  cried  to  the  rich  and  powerful, 
'  Lo  !  these  also  are  your  brethren ' ;  he  has  suc- 
ceeded in  startling  the  Bishops  from  their  arm- 
chairs, and  the  priests  from  their  confessionals  ;  he 
has  said,  '  What  you  for  eighteen  centuries  have 
failed  to  do — what  you  have  scarcely  even  cared 
to  do — I,  an  individual,  a  man  of  the  people,  will 
at  least  try  to  do.'  And  in  the  face  of  this  man, 
whose  hand  is  open  to  the  outcast  and  the  fallen  ; 
who  turns  his  back  on  no  human  creature,  however 
base  ;  who  knows  the  world  far  better  than  any 
scientist  that  was  ever  born.  Professor  Huxley 
buttons  up   his   pockets,   purses   up   his   lips,   and 


FLO  TSAM  AND  JETSAM.  34  i 

tries  to  escape  from  the  imputation  of  incon- 
sistency, of  inhumanity,  by  avowing  his  adherence 
to  Principles  which  he  has  been  opposing  all  his 
Kfe. 

But  no  ;  Professor  Huxley  is  not  inconsistent. 
He  stands  where  he  has  always  stood,  among  those 
who  are  by  temperament  deprived  of  the  true 
philosophic  vision  and  the  real  enthusiasm  of 
humanity.  A  genuine  scientific  student,  capable 
of  much  careful  verification  on  a  low  j^lane  of 
inquiry,  he  cannot  generalize  and  cannot  organize. 
He  has  vindicated  centuries  of  wrong-doing  ;  he 
has  upheld  the  tyrannies  of  Force  and  Convention; 
he  has  sided  with  Society  against  the  Individual  on 
the  ground  of  utility,  and  with  the  Strong  against 
the  Weak  on  the  score  of  necessity  ;  and  so,  after 
all,  even  this  last  miraculous  conversion — a  sham, 
like  all  things  seemingly  miraculous — cannot  save 
him.  He  is  condemned  out  of  his  own  mouth  as 
the  Pharisee  who  passes  by,  while  General  Booth 
is  justified,  by  his  own  act,  as  the  Samaritan  who 
at  least  endeavours  to  heal  and  bless.  ^ 

*  Professor  Huxley's  only  comment  on  this  was  a  protest  that 
I  utterly  misstated  his  views,  and  that  I  was,  he  believed,  merely  a 
writer  of  '  works  of  imagination.'  The  good  Professor's  contempt 
for  his  opponents,  for  all  who  dare  to  question  his  empirical 
statements,  is  notorious.  To  him,  even  Mr.  Spencer  was  only 
'  an  abstract  Philosopher.' 


342  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 


X. 

PROFESSOR    HUXLEy's    MIRACULOUS    CONVERSION  (2). 

In  the  Times  of  December  9,  1890,  appeared 
another  letter  from  Professor  Huxley,  written  in 
the  same  vein  as  his  first  diatribe,  on  General 
Booth's  scheme,  and  attached  to  it  was  the  letter 
from  my  pen,  which  was  printed  in  the  Daily 
Chronicle  (and  the  Daily  Chronicle  only)  on  the 
previous  day.  Now,  my  letter  was  issued  to  the 
public  Press  on  the  previous  Sunday,  but  several 
of  the  dailies  passed  it  by  without  insertion,  on 
the  conventional  ground  that  the  letter  of  which  it 
was  a  criticism  '  had  not  appeared  in  their  columns.' 
The  Times,  however,  with  characteristic  unfair- 
ness, published  it  a  day  late,  in  order  that,  when 
my  protest  was  seen  and  read.  Professor  Huxley 
might  have  another  opportunity  of  raising  false 
issues  on  the  subject.  These,  as  we  all  know,  are 
the  usual  tactics  of  the  great  organ  of  British 
Philistia.  It  cannot  be  fair  and  honest,  even  in 
so  small  a  matter  as  the  printing  of  correspondence. 
From  the  day  when  it  fought  on  the  side  of  Slavery 
during  the  American  Civil  War  to  the  day  when  it 
organized  the  Pigott  forgery,  and  from  that  day  to 
the  present,  when  it  lets  loose  the  quasi-scientific 
Boanerges  to  fulminate  against  the  Salvation  Army 
and     talk    half-instructed     twaddle     about    Simon 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  343 

Magus  and  the  Mendicant  Friars,  it  has  been 
steadily  posing  as  the  enemy  of  human  progress 
and  human  enlightenment. 

It  is  not,  however,  with  the   Times  I  have  to 
deal,  but  with  the  gentleman  in  full  '■  useful-know- 
ledge canonicals,'  who  now,  as  heretofore,  refuses 
to  give  General  Booth  his  blessing — for  which,  I 
am  sure,    the    General    never    prayed.      By    what 
right     of    achievement     or    attainment    Professor 
Huxley  assumes  to  speak  authoritatively  on  social 
questions    I    have    never    been    able    to    discover. 
Both  he  and  Professor  Tyndall,  who  steps  forward 
to   support  him,  have  done  very  little  to  justify- 
any  faith  in  either  their  sympathy  or  their  insight. 
But  both,   we   have   to   bear   in  mind,    have    one 
mission  in  common — to    translate    the   jargon    of 
Carlyle  into  the  easy  patter  of  Cheap  Science,  so 
that  '  he  who  runs  may  read.'     Professor  Huxley, 
on  the  grounds  of  his  recent  '  miraculous  conver- 
sion' to   Spencerian   principles,   now   poses    as  an 
Individualist ;  but   we  must  be  careful   to  distin- 
guish between  such  individualism  as   his  and  the 
deeply  reasoned  individualism  of  the  Philosopher 
he  has  denounced  so  often  and  so  long.      We  must 
remember  that   his  warning   is   not   philosophical, 
but  empirical ;  that  he  has  on  previous  occasions 
committed   himself   to  a   defence   of  the    present 
social  cosmos,  or  chaos,  as  opposed  to  the  aspira- 
tions of  human  freedom  ;  that,  in  a  word,  he  em- 
bodies the  kind  of  opinion  which  would  oppose  to 


344  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

the  Enthusiasm  of  Humanity  the  dreary  conven- 
tionaHties  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction. 

For  what,  after  all,  has  this  self-canonized 
lecturer  on  useful  knowledge  to  say  on  the  subject 
at  issue  ?  What  is  his  criticism  of  the  Man  who, 
like  his  great  Prototype,  has  actually  descended 
into  Hell,  hoping  to  snatch  thence  the  submerged 
*  tenth  '  of  our  population  ?  Firstly,  that  there 
are  many  philanthropies  in  the  world,  and  that 
General  Booth's  is  only  one  of  them.  This, 
surely,  we  knew  already.  Secondly,  that  earlier 
labourers  in  the  field  of  Socialism  had  .no  army 
organization,  no  beating  drums,  no  general  fan- 
faronade, and  that  such  organization  belongs  rather 
to  the  raving  mystagogues  of  the  East  than  to  the 
steady  social  workers  of  the  West.  In  this  con- 
nection, curiously  enough,  the  empirical  Professor, 
always  inconsistent  in  argument,  while  ever  con- 
sistent in  temperament,  sighs  for  the  old-fashioned 
and  quiet  ways  of  the  Apostles,  about  whose 
'  quietness,'  by  the  way,  he  might  have  learned 
something  by  a  few  more  visits  to  the  British 
Museum.  It  is  surely  news  to  all  the  world  that 
the  early  Christians  were  peaceful,  non-revolu- 
tionary, non-organizing  persons,  in  no  way  trouble- 
some to  persons  of  opposite  opinion  and  lovers 
of  laissez  faire.  Thirdly  and  finally.  Professor 
Huxley,  while  recognising  the  fact  of  human 
misery,  asserts  that  General  Booth's  scheme  to 
check  it  is  likely  to  do  '  more  harm  than  good.' 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  345 

And  then  he  begins  to  tell  us  'why.'  Then, 
for  the  first  time,  we  begin  to  get  at  what  he 
really  does  mean.  '  It  is  primarily  and  mainly  for 
the  sake  of  saving  the  Soul,'  writes  General  Booth, 
'that  I  seek  the  salvation  of  the  Body.'  This 
means,  according  to  Professor  Huxley,  that  '  men 
are  to  be  made  sober  and  industrious  mainly  that, 
as  washed,  shorn,  and  docile  sheep,  they  may 
be  driven  into  the  narrow  theological  fold  which 
Mr.  Booth  patronizes.'  Does  it  mean  anything 
of  the  kind  ?  I,  for  one,  have  about  as  much 
belief  as  Professor  Huxley  in  any  religious  dogma 
or  Christian  formula,  but  I  have  never  gathered 
from  General  Booth  that  he  bases  his  scheme  on 
any  foundation  of  abstract  theology.  But,  if  he 
did,  surely  the  man  who,  with  any  formula  what- 
ever, can  make  the  wretched  millions  '  sober  and 
industrious,'  is  achieving  fully  two-thirds  of  the 
objects  of  all  human  science,  of  all  human  regene- 
ration. Here,  again.  Professor  Huxley  is  illogical ; 
for  once  make  a  man  '  sober  and  industrious ' — 
once  make  him  to  some  extent  a  rational  creature 
— and  be  sure  you  will  not  '  drive '  him  very  far. 
You  have  given  eyes  to  the  blind ;  those  eyes  will  see. 

'  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  thinking,'  proceeds 
Professor  Huxley,  '  that  self-respect  and  thrift  are 
the  rungs  of  the  ladder  by  which  men  must  surely 
climb  out  of  the  slough  of  the  despond  of  want, 
and  I  have  regarded  them  as  perhaps  the  most 
eminent  of  the   practical  virtues.'     A'pres?     Has 


346  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

General  Booth  ever  denounced  self-respect  and 
thrift  ?  No,  admits  the  Professor ;  but  he  has 
said  that  *  envy  '  is  the  corner-stone  of  our  com- 
petitive system,  and  that  the  sufferings  of  starving 
men  are  the  consequence  of  '  the  sins  of  the 
capitalist ' !  Here  we  get  a  fine  glimpse  of  the 
good  Professor  who  defended  the  Status  quo  on 
the  score  of  expediency,  and  who  demanded  for 
the  landgrabber  and  the  capitalist,  enriched  by 
centuries  of  wrong -doing,  a  certain  statute  of 
limitations.  Does  anyone  but  an  empirical 
scientist,  confusing  the  survival  of  the  socially 
successful  with  the  natural  survival  of  the  fittest, 
doubt  for  a  moment  that  '  envy '  and  greed  are  the 
crying  sins  of  our  generation,  and  that  many  men 
starve  because  their  fellow-men  refuse  to  feel  ? 
Read,  in  this  connection,  the  solemn  and  beautiful 
words  of  Mr.  Henry  John  Atkinson,  printed  in 
the  very  number  of  the  Times  which  contains  the 
Professor's  grisly  diatribe  :  '  I  cannot  sit  still  in 
warmth  and  comfort  when  I  know  that  many  of 
my  countrymen  are  wandering  about  London  with- 
out food  or  shelter  all  through  these  inclement 
nights,  and  that  General  Booth  and  his  corps  of 
workers  wish  to  help  them,  and  cannot  get  the 
means.  My  wife  and  I  will  give  £300' — while 
Professor  Huxley,  who  would  cheerfully,  no  doubt, 
contribute  to  a  scheme  for  the  extension  of  Vivi- 
section, buttons  up  his  trousers-pockets  and  keeps 
his  friend's  ^thousand  pounds.' 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  347 


Further  on,  Professor  Huxley  pushes  his  objec- 
tion further  home  by  citing  a  case  of  so-called 
'  persecution.'  A  girl  was  ^  seduced  twice/  and 
applied  to  the  Salvationists,  who  thereupon  '  hunted 
up  the  man,  threatened  him  with  exposure,  and 
forced  from  him  the  payment  to  his  victim  of  £60 
down,  an  allowance  of  £1  a  week,  and  an  assurance 
on  his  life  of  £450  in  her  favour.'  Intimidation 
with  a  vengeance,  very  Jedburgh  justice,  says  the 
Professor.  Let  us  not  be  quite  sure.  Let  us  not 
assume  too  hastily  that  the  case  was  not  fully 
investigated.  Let  us  reflect  at  the  same  time 
what  the  precious  Law  would  have  done  for  the 
victim  of  this  seducer.  It  would  have  enabled 
her  to  take  out  a  summons,  perhaps,  and,  if  there 
were  a  child,  secure  a  weekly  sum  of  half  a  crown 
while  that  child  was  of  tender  years  !  Professor 
Huxley  thinks  that,  in  all  possibility,  it  was  a 
mere  question  of  relative  moral  delinquency  be- 
tween the  parties,  and  that  the  man,  so  brought 
to  book,  was  as  much  a  '  victim '  as  the  woman. 
Excellent  Professor  !  True  upholder  of  masculine 
law-making  and  the  survival  of  the  culpable 
fittest !  May  we  not  in  all  seriousness  wish  Mr. 
Spencer  joy  of  his  last  proselyte  ? 

When  all  is  said  and  done,  all  that  Professor 
Huxley  can  advance  against  the  Salvation  Army 
is  that  it  is  '  noisy  '  ;  that  it  uses  the  vocabulary  of 
superstition  ;  that  it  reproaches  the  rich  for  the 
sorrows  of  the  poor  ;  and   that    whenever  it  can. 


348  FL  O TSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

it  tries  to  bring  delinquents  to  justice  !  Well, 
admit  every  one  of  the  indictments,  and  what  is 
proved  ?  That  every  beneficent  scheme  has  some 
little  drawbacks,  but  that  every  such  scheme  must 
be  judged  by  the  totality,  by  the  entire  moral 
efficacy,  of  its  influence.  What  the  Salvation 
Army  has  done  is  this — it  has,  first  of  all, 
aiv akened  the  sleeping  conscience  of  the  world. 
It  has  told  Dives  that  he  must  not  sleep  so  long 
as  Lazarus  starves ;  it  has  proclaimed  that  there 
is  hope  for  every  man,  even  for  the  basest,  if  he 
will  try  to  be  '  honest  and  industrious'  ;  it  has 
held  out  hands  to  the  Penitent  Thief  (as  it  would 
hold  out  hands  to  the  penitent  Professor),  and  it 
has  broken  bread  with  the  Magdalen.  Then  think 
for  a  moment  what  Cheap  Science,  with  its  dema- 
gogues of  the  dissecting-room,  its  peripatetic  pro- 
fessors, has  done,  or  tried  to  do.  It  has  prattled 
glibly  of  Natural  Law  and  the  Survival  of  the 
Fittest;  it  has  cast  in  its  lot  with  the  Times  and  the 
governing  classes;  it  has  paraded  forged  documents 
to  enslave  the  Irish  people  and  discredit  a  nation- 
ality ;  it  has  countenanced  the  ^  unco'  gude  '  and 
joined  in  the  holy  horror  against  the  destroyers 
of  national  institutions,  such  as  War  and  Prostitu- 
tion ;  it  has  contented  itself  with  Carlyle's  Gospel 
according  to  the  Printer's  Devil  and  the  faith 
which  confuses  natural  Freedom  and  Equality  with 
'  reasoned  savagery'  ;  and  last,  and  greatest  of  its 
achievements,    it    has     instituted     the    beneficent 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  349 

tortures  of  Vivisection.  Well,  if  we  have  to 
choose  between  Simon  Magus  and  Professor 
Huxley,  or  between  General  Booth  and  Professor 
Ferrier,  let  us  give  our  vote  to  those  who  are  the 
friends  of  both  man  and  beast — with  the  workers 
who  are  tender  to  the  weak  and  merciful  to  the 
fallen,  not  with  those  who  turn  with  complacency 
to  acts  of  beneficent  legislation,  and  —  let  the 
lost  go  by  1  As  for  Professor  Huxley,  he  is  only 
our  old  friend  the  Priest  in  another  guise,  as  un- 
sympathetic, as  bigoted,  as  retrograde  as  anyone 
who  ever  wore  soutane  or  cowl.  Even  in  his  new 
aspect  as  a  convert  to  Individualism,  he  will  con- 
vince no  sane  man  that  Folly  and  Enthusiasm  are 
synonymous  terms. 

XI. 

*  THE    JOURNALIST    IN    ABSOLUTION.'* 

Writing  neither  as  a  person  having  authority,  nor 
as  one  of  the  scribes,  I  wish  to  put  on  record,  if 
you  will  permit  me,  my  complete  and  absolute 
sympathy  with  Mr.  Parnell.  He  may,  or  may 
not,  be  an  Adulterer — that,  in  any  case,  I  consider 
a  detail  chiefly  interesting  to  himself;  but  I 
contend  that  his  technical  and  legal  guilt  is  no 
proof  whatever  of  his  moral  turpitude.  No  ques- 
tion involving  the  relation  of  the  sexes  can  be 
absolutely  decided  in  the  tainted  atmosphere  of 
*  First  published  just  after  the  divorce  suit  of  O'Shea  v.  Parnell. 


50  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM, 


our  foul  Divorce  Court,  and  the  case  of  *  O'Shea 
V.  Parnell '  was  established  by  the  unworthiest  of 
all  evidence,  that  of  prying  chambermaids,  prurient 
lodging-house  keepers,  and  all  the  miserable  human 
fry  who  swim  in  the  unclean  shallows  of  the  legal 
puddle.  To  my  mind,  Mr.  Parnell's  stern  and  abso- 
lute silence,  his  determination  not  to  be  dragged 
through  the  obscene  mire,  is  negative  evidence  in 
his  favour.  He  has  chosen,  like  a  strong  man,  to 
let  the  blow  fall  on  his  own  shoulders,  and  the 
result  is  that  Mrs.  O'Shea  has  been  spared  and 
almost  forgotten,  while  all  the  moral  wolves  are 
clamouring  for  Mr.  Parnell's  blood.  But  even  if 
Mr.  Parnell  is  guilty,  no  man  can  tell  in  what 
degree.  That,  as  I  have  said,  is  a  matter  chiefly 
concerning  himself.  What  concerns  us,  men  who 
stand  as  simple  spectators  of  a  persecution  un- 
paralleled in  the  history  of  Politics,  is  the  means 
which  are  being  adopted  to  hound  a  great  man  out 
of  public  life. 

It  is  on  record,  I  believe,  or  at  any  rate  it  has 
been  stated,  that  immediately  after  the  decision  of 
the  Divorce  Court  a  well-known  Journalist  waited 
upon  Mr.  Parnell  and  informed  him  that  unless 
full  '  confession  '  was  made  at  once,  and  the  leader- 
ship of  the  Irish  Party  simultaneously  resigned, 
the  said  journalist  would  appeal  to  the  Puritans  of 
England  to  ^  let  loose  the  dogs  '  of  moral  War. 
Whether  threatened  or  not,  the  thing  has  been 
done,  and  Mr.  Parnell  has  been  hunted  down,  not 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  351 

by  honest  public  opinion,  not  by  British  virtue,  not 
even  by  the  British  Matron,  but  by  the  Journahsm 
of  the  Sewers  on  the  one  side  and  the  Journahsm 
of  the  Back-kitchen  on  the  other.  For  whence 
chiefly  arises  this  ferocious  clamour  of  prurient 
Morality,  this  talk  about  the  sanctity  of  the  house- 
hold, and  the  eternal  symbolism  of  the  bed-post  ? 
Firstly,  from  the  source  out  of  which  arose  the 
publication  of  a  scandal  so  infamous,  and  described 
so  infamously,  that  the  very  air  of  Nature  was 
polluted  as  by  a  cesspool,  the  stench  of  which 
penetrated  like  poison  into  every  household  of  the 
land.  Secondly,  from  the  individual  who  invented 
the  journalism  of  Paul  Pry,  who  has  violated  all 
the  privileges  of  social  life,  while  haunting  the 
back-kitchens  of  the  aristocracy,  and  counting  the 
candle-ends  of  the  governing  classes  ;  and  who, 
finally,  proposed  not  long  ago  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  to  the  manifest  satisfaction  of  a  crowd 
of  fellow-demagogues,  to  pollute  the  ears  of  his 
fellow-members  by  opening  up  in  broad  day  the 
sewer  of  another  foul  and  loathsome  scandal.  The 
other  attacks  on  the  character  of  the  member  for 
Cork  may  be  set  aside  as  purely  political.  The 
attacks  to  which  I  draw  attention  are  specifically 
'  moral.'  It  is  the  latter  to  which  I  wish  to 
confine  your  attention,  while  demanding  whether 
we  are  to  substitute  for  the  old  and  discredited 
priesthoods,  the  priesthood  of  the  Journalist  in 
Absolution  ? 


352  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM, 

No    *  Confessional   Unmasked '   has   yet,  to  my 
mind,    furnished  so   sad  an  illustration  of  human 
prurience  as  the  new  Confessional  of  the  Journal. 
Manifold  as  are  the   injuries  which  Journalism  in 
general  has  done  to  Society,  to  Literature,  and  to 
Art,  by  fostering  the  uninstruction  of  the  general 
reader,  and   parading  the  ephemeral  judgments  of 
the  hour,  those  injuries   are   small   to  the  crimes 
committed  by  the   Journalism  which  masquerades 
in  the  guise  of  Morality,  which  deals  in  household 
garbage,  and,  in  the  interests  of  vulgar  curiosity, 
institutes  a   Public  Confessional.       Dismal  indeed 
is   the    lot    of    the    human    being  who,   like    Mr. 
Parnell,  sits  in  the  confession-box,  with  the  Priest 
of  Prurience  on  one  side  and  the  Priest  of  Scandal 
on  the  other.      If  he  refuses,  as  Mr.  Parnell  has 
done,  to  make  any  kind  of  utterance,  woe  to  him 
and   to   his   generation  !      The   flood-gates   of  de- 
nunciation are  opened  ;  the  whole  army   of  back- 
kitchen  moralists  and  scandal -mongers   is   arrayed 
against  him  ;  the  standard  of  the   Cross  is  raised, 
and  men  prepare  for  the  luxury  of  the  auto  da  fe. 
Honest   citizens   bar   their   doors,   and  peep   from 
their  windows  in  terror.      Everywhere,  ushered  by 
the  newsboy  with   his   '  latest  edition,'   walk    the 
agents  of  the  Inquisition. 

To  most  men  who  would  live  their  lives  in  peace, 
Journalism  is  merely  Babbage's  Organ  in  the 
Street  ;  they  stop  their  ears,  and  try  to  think 
and  work  in  spite    of  it.      But   to    all   men    who 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  353 

value  the  security  of  their  homes  and  the  right  of 
private  judgment,  the   New  Journahsm,   with  its 
aggression,    its   tyrannical  bias,   and   its  shameless 
indecency,  is  the  old  Priest  in  Absolution  forcing  a 
way  into  every  household.      Tartuffe  and  Melchior 
live  again  in  the  columns  of  the  inquisitorial  news- 
paper, while  the  Scapin  of  Politics  walks  hand-in- 
hand  with  the   Mawworm  of  Morality.      At   this 
moment,    therefore,     when    a    wave    of    prurient 
Puritanism  is  rising  higher  and  higher  to  destroy 
all  that  makes  the  world  sweet  and  wholesome,  it 
is    with    no    common    interest    that    we    who   are 
neither  inquisitorial  nor  *  moral '  watch  the  fate  of 
Mr.  Parnell.      If  he  stands  like  a  rock,  refusing  to 
be  doomed  by  the  Divorce  Court,  and  defying  the 
clamour  of  penny-a-lining  Pharisees,  there  is  still 
hope   for   Society.      If  he   falls,  bestraddled   over 
by  the  rampant  Journalist  in  Absolution,  we  who 
loathe  his  would-be  Confessors  may   well  despair. 
I  shall  say  nothing  here  of  his  public  services,  of 
his  power  and  prescience  as  the  one  man  capable 
of  interpreting  the  hopes  and  wishes  of  the   Irish 
race  ;  nothing  of  the  constitutional  bigotry  which 
has  led  even  so  honest  a  man  as  Mr.  Gladstone  to 
join  in  the  cry  against  him.      It  should  be  remem- 
bered, nevertheless,  that  Mr.   Parnell   retains  his 
position,  not  because  he  is  privately  virtuous,  but 
because  he   is   politically  puissant,   and  that  Mr. 
Gladstone,  despite  all   his   noble  disinterestedness, 
is  a  retrograde  moralist,   who  repudiates  Divorce 

23 


354  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM, 

under  any  circumstances,  and  founds  his  repudia- 
tion on  the  diseased  ravings  of  mediaeval  monks 
and  saints.  I  for  one  believe  that  issues  far  deeper 
than  any  issues  merely  political  will  be  determined 
by  the  ultimate  position  of  Mr.  Parnell.  I  for  one 
refuse  to  accept  the  discredited  disclosures  of  the 
Divorce  Court,  and  the  obscene  comments  of  the 
Journalist  in  Absolution,  as  any  final  test  of 
human  life  and  character. 

XII. 

THE  COURTESAN  ON  THE  STAGE. 

I  HAVE  recently  read,  with  no  usual  interest,  a 
clever  and  trenchant  article  on  ^  Stage  Courtesans.* 
To  *  shatter  the  sentiment,'  as  the  writer  expresses 
it,  of  such  plays  as  the  '  Lady  of  the  Camellias,' 
is  a  task  which  even  his  able  pen  is  quite  unable 
to  accomplish ;  for  that  sentiment,  I  believe,  is 
founded  on  some  of  the  strongest  instincts  of 
human  nature.  Moreover,  the  type  of  Camille 
is,  according  to  my  small  experience,  quite  as 
common  as  the  type  of  Cora  Pearl ;  and  from  the 
days  of  the  Magdalen  to  those  of  De  Quincey's 
Ann  the  street- walker,  the  class  named  ^  unfor- 
tunate '  has  claimed,  and  claimed  justly,  the 
sympathy  of  all  mortals  except  a  few  supervestal 
virgins  and  a  large  proportion  of  ma,tchmaking 
matrons.  I  am  not,  however,  vindicating  in  this 
connection  the  morbid  psychology  of  the  sentimental 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  355 

school  of  the  early  Empire.  I  am  simply  contend- 
ing for  justice  to  a  type  of  character  which,  with 
all  its  depravities,  is  full  of  irresistible  artistic 
fascinations. 

The  ethical  question  involved  in  the  article  I 
have  named  is  far  too  involved  a  one  to  be  discussed 
in  the  space  of  a  brief  note.  All  I  wish  to  do  is 
to  protest  against  the  Pharisaism  which,  both  in 
life  and  literature,  describes  certain  characters  and 
certain  subjects  as  unfit  for  the  treatment  of 
dramatic  art.  In  England,  only  those  situations 
and  characters  are  held  justifiable  which  have 
received,  or  are  likely  to  receive,  the  sanction  of 
Mr.  Gilbert's  young  lady  of  fifteen ;  and  the  result 
is  a  Drama  which,  to  my  thinking,  leaves  out  of 
sight  at  least  the  half  of  human  life,  and  supplies 
us  with  the  barest  possible  profile  of  human  nature. 
In  the  field  of  pure  literature  the  result  is  dispirit- 
ing enough  ;  in  the  field  of  dramatic  art  it  is  simply 
stupefying.  I  believe  myself  that  playgoers  would 
be  a  healthier  race  if  their  morals  were  less  tenderly 
taken  care  of;  that  even  morbid  psychology  is  a 
healthier  thing  than  morbid  prudery  or  '  Podsnap- 
pery ' ;  that  before  the  stage  can  be  a  great 
literary  influence,  its  tongue  must  be  set  free  and 
its  moral  speech  unfettered  ;  that,  in  a  word,  we 
want  a  breezier  atmosphere  and  a  saner  method  if 
our  stagecraft  is  to  grapple  at  all  with  the  great 
problems  of  life  and  religion. 

The  courtesan  is  the  creature  of  society — pure 

23—2 


356  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

and  noble,  as   in  the  ease  of  Aspasia  ;    bold  and 
vicious,  as  in  the  case  of  Nell  Gwynne  ;  sad  and 
hectic,  as  in  the  case  of  Marguerite  Gautier ;   or 
simply  carnivorous,  as  in  the  case  of   Nana   and 
Cora   Pearl.     As  long  as  she  exists,  either  as  a 
worker   of  that    social   safety-valve   recognised   in 
the   execrable  ethics  of  Swedenborg,   or  as  a  sad 
*  necessity '  created  by  the  evils  of  modern  society, 
she  will  have  her  fit  place  in  literature  as  well  as 
in  life.    Those  who  know  the  Courtesan  best  believe 
that   Cora   Pearl,  who,   when   her   lover   destroys 
himself,  simply  thinks  of  the  stains  on  her  carpet, 
is    a    monstrosity — that    is,    true     to    a     certain 
monstrous    form    of    womanhood    as    Faustine    or 
Messalina.      For   one   creature   of  this   sort  there 
exist    a    thousand    creatures    who    are    not     the 
avenging  furies,  but  the  victims   and  martyrs,  of 
an  infamous  social  law.      Far  distant  be  the  day 
when  personal  purity  and  chastity  is  not  recognised 
as  the  highest  quality  and  prerogative  of  woman- 
hood— when  we  forget  to  desiderate  in  all  noble 
women  the  qualities  we  respect  in  our  mothers  and 
our  sisters.     Yet,  since  the  Courtesan  is  what  the 
sensuality   of  man    has   made   her,    let   us,   if  we 
are  in  the  mood  for  stone-throwing,  aim  our  mis- 
siles, not  at  her,  but  at  the  men  who  have  created 
her  to  minister  to  their  appetites.      Do  not  let  us, 
above   all,  simulate  indignation  when  we   see   her 
momentarily   transfigured   on  the   page  of  a  poet 
or  behind  the  footlights  of  a  theatre  ;  but  let  us 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  357 

remember  in  connection  with  her  the  infinite 
pathos  and  tenderness  with  which  she  has  been 
surrounded  for  eighteen  hundred  years,  through  the 
sagacious  beneficence  of  the  law-abiding  Founder  of 
Christianity. 


XIII. 

GOETHE    AND    CRITICISM. 

When  Goethe  found  his  sheep's-head  on  a  common, 
and  proclaimed  his  discovery  of  the  inter-maxillary 
bone,  he  was  doing  better  work  for  Humanity  than 
when,  in  his  minor  poems  and  romances,  he 
preached  the  retrograde  gospel  of  Egoismus. 
Science  may  possibly  have  gained  something  by 
his  anatomical  generalizations,  but  Literature  has 
lost  everything  by  his  successful  sermonizing.  To 
a  belated  idealist  like  myself,  the  whole  work  of 
Goethe  is  a  clumsy  pyramid  on  the  world's  high- 
way. By  one  solitary  eflfort  of  true  imagination 
the  great  pagan  saved  his  soul  for  posterity,  and 
just  where  he  was  most  primitive,  most  conven- 
tional, least  egoistical,  did  he  achieve  his  poetical 
success.  A  commonplace  story  of  seduction,  re- 
lieved by  the  cynical  asides  of  a  conventional 
Devil,  remains  as  Goethe's  masterpiece.  Mean- 
time his  mean  and  selfish  gospel  has  sunk  deep 
into  the  souls  of  little  men,  emerging  from  time 
to   time    to    paralyze    sentiment  and   imagination, 


358  FLOTSAM  AND  jETSAM. 

and  creating  literary  monsters  as  hideous  as  the 
Frenchman  Zola  and  as  crude  and  unfinished  as 
the  Scandinavian  Ibsen.  That  this  same  gospel 
of  Egoismus  appeals  to  a  certain  order  of  intel- 
ligence may  at  once  be  conceded ;  it  is  a  fact 
proved  by  the  vitality  of  Goethe  as  a  literary 
influence.  Although  that  influence  has  been 
mainly  in  the  region  of  criticism,  and  although, 
in  spite  of  it,  the  great  humanists  Balzac  and 
Hugo  have  emerged  triumphant,  it  is  still  a  force 
to  be  reckoned  with,  more  especially  as  in  recent 
manifestations  it  combines  itself  with  the  inchoate 
force  of  Science.  It  is,  however,  in  its  very 
essence  anti-literary — a  statement  easily  proved 
by  a  reference  to  the  literary  history  of  this 
century.  Goethe  has  begotten  a  whole  race  of 
Critics,  but  not  one  modern  Poet,  not  one  modern 
writer  of  genius,  has  turned  to  him  for  paternal 
inspiration. 

XIV. 

'dramatic  criticism  as  she  is  wrote. ''^ 

'  If  an  English  school,  which  heaven  forefend ! 
should  be  moved  to  attempt  a  similar  pleasantry ' 
(p.  9).  Mr.  Archer  means  to  say  the  reverse  of 
what  he  writes.      In  English  the  sentence  would 

*  Extracts  from  a  book  called  *  About  the  Theatre,'  by  William 
Archer.     See  ante^  '  The  Modern  Young  Man  as  Critic' 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  359 

run  :  \  If  an  English  school  should  be  moved  (which 
heaven  forefend  !)  to  attempt  a  similar  pleasantry.' 

*  Which  of  our  countless  humiliations  was  it  that 
broke  the  camel's  back,  and  made  it  morbidly  eager 
to  balance  matters  by  splitting  its  sides?'  (p.  13). 
How  a  '  humiliation '  could  '  break '  anything, 
how  a  ^  camel's  back'  could  be  '■  morbidly  eager,' 
especially  to  '  split  its  sides,'  I  must  leave  my 
reader  to  explain. 

*  A  Lyceum  first  night  has  now  become  a  solemn 
"  function,"  which  peers,  millionaires  and  honour- 
able women  "  intrigue  to  see  "  '  (p.  4).  Mr.  Archer 
must  indeed  be  considered  superhuman  in  his 
insight ;  he  can  *  see  '  a  ^  function.' 

'  This  genus  all '  is  Mr.  Archer's  elegant  trans- 
lation of  hoc  genus  omne.  Yet  we  are  authorita- 
tively informed  that  Mr.  Archer  has  been  to  school, 
in  Scotland. 

'  The  audience  knows  perfectly  well  he  is  in- 
tended for  a  bishop,  accepts  him  for  one,  and  (such 
is  their  reverence)  laughs  at  him  accordingly'  (pp. 
147,  148). 

*  The  theatrical  critic  who  desires  to  write,  I  do 
not  say  a  good  style,  but  English  of  moderate 
purity,  has  a  hard  time  of  it'  (p.  203).  We  had 
always  imagined  literary  style  to  be  a  quality  of 
something  written.  To  '  write  a  style '  is  a  phrase 
as  full  of  meaning  as  *  to  paint  an  art '  or  *  to  sing 
a  tone.' 

*  Though  the  logical  difference  between  this  case 


36o  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM, 

and  that  of  the  ''  ensemble  "  may  not  be  apparent, 
I  believe  that  even  the  Americans  have  trusted  to 
their  ears  rather  than  their  logic,  and  have  accepted 
the  one  and  rejected  the  other'!  (p.  207).  Does 
Mr.  Archer  mean  by  this  that  the  poor  Americans 
have  accepted  a  certain  *  logic '  at  the  expense  of 
the  rejection  of  their  *  ears '  ? 

*  It  (the  Censorship)  is  destructive,  because  it 
takes  out  of  the  people's  hands  a  power  that  they 
alone  can  wield,  and  thus  deadens  their  feeling  of 
responsibility  for  the  morals  of  the  stage'  (p.  157). 
Imagine  the  *  feeling  of  responsibility '  for  theatrical 
morals  conceived  by  the  *  people's  hands ' ! 

But  I  hear  my  readers  cry,  *  Hold,  enough !' 
Mr.  Archer's  book  is  full  of  flowers  such  as  I  have 
transplanted. 


FINAL  WORDS. 


FINAL    WOKDS. 
I. 

THE    PARADOX. 

The  paradox  of  this  book,  permeating  it  throughout, 
is  the  one  stated  in  the  letters  entitled  '  Are  Men 
born  Free  and  Equal  V  to  the  effect  that  true 
Socialism  is  another  name  for  Individualism.  A 
little  reflection,  however,  may  convince  us  that  it 
is  perhaps  no  paradox  at  all. 

Personally,  I  should  be  grieved  and  disheartened 
if  any  friends  of  mine  should  class  me  with  ,the 
enemies  of  the  higher  Socialism,  which  has  all  my 
sympathy  and  all  my  prayers.  My  contention 
is  in  favour  of  the  right  of  individuals  to  agitate 
for  i^urposes  of  self-protection,  to  destroy  false 
economics,  cruel  monopolies,  tyrannical  inter- 
ferences with  the  conduct  of  life.  For  example, 
in  the  admirable  series  of  economic  and  historical 
statements  published  by  the  Fabian  Society,  there 
is  scarcely  a  word  from  which  I  should  dissent,  if 
I  were  allowed  to  qualify  the  preposterous  con- 
clusions  based   upon   those   statements.      Rational 


364  FINAL   WORDS. 


Socialism  has  worked  wonders  for  society ;  but 
how  ?  By  protecting  the  weak  against  the  strong, 
the  worker  against  the  capitahst,  the  average  man 
against  the  organization  of  hereditary  monopolists. 
But  surely  such  Socialism  is  only  the  fruit  of  the 
labours  performed  by  temporarily  discredited 
minorities  —  in  a  word,  by  aggressive  and  self- 
assertive  Individualism  ?  Latter-day  agitators  are 
very  fond  of  regarding  those  who  disagree  with 
them,  about  the  extent  to  which  democratic  legis- 
lation should  be  carried,  as  selfish  and  anarchic 
faddists — men  who  w^ould  leave  the  *  strugglers  for 
life '  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and  who  use  as 
mottoes,  Laissez  faire  and  Laissez  aller.  These 
Socialists  base  all  their  hopes  of  a  social  cosmos  on 
a  system  of  State  organization,  worked  by  a  demo- 
cratic majority,  which  would  gradually  average  the 
laws  of  life  for  all  men,  and  suppress  all  individual 
development. 

Yet  it  is  here,  I  think,  that  my  friends  are 
themselves  paradoxical,  for  I  would  be  quite 
content  to  canvass  them  on  most  of  the  questions 
discussed  in  the  preceding  pages,  and  abide  by  the 
result.  They,  surely,  would  contend  for  the  natural 
freedom  and  equality  of  Man,  as  /  understand  it ; 
for  the  emancipation  of  the  weaker  sex  ;  for  the 
freedom  of  art  and  letters  ;  for  the  right  of  private 
judgment  in  matters  moral  and  religious  ;  for  the 
repression  of  scientific  or  quasi-scientific  experiments 
on  the  lives  of  human  beings  and  helpless  animals ; 


FINAL   WORDS.  365 


for  the  destruction  of  War  and  Prostitution.  Yet 
here,  as  may  readily  be  shown,  they  are  contending 
with  the  minority,  they  are  fighting  for  individual 
liberties  and  privileges  which  the  State  at  present 
denies  them.  Their  power  in  the  land  is  already 
great,  and  will  be  greater  as  time  advances.  The 
abstract  principles  they  are  preaching  will  slowly 
leaven  the  mass  of  misery  and  crime.  But  why  ? 
Not  because  they  are  waging  a  mad  crusade  against 
Society  as  rationally  constituted,  but  because  they 
are  organizing,  under  able  individual  leaders,  to 
disintegrate  the  present  too  common  social  evils  ; 
because,  in  one  word,  they  are  proving  that  every 
sane  human  being  is  not  merely  a  member  of 
Society,  but  an  individual  possessing  natural  rights, 
liberties,  and  privileges. 

This,  I  say,  is  the  Paradox,  the  Piddle  of  the 
Sphynx :  How  to  preserve  the  freedom  of  Humanity 
while  preserving  the  freedom  of  individual  men  ? 

On  one  point  there  can  be  no  dispute,  and  has 
been  no  dispute.  The  present  system  of  Society, 
it  is  admitted,  includes  structures  honeycombed  by 
centuries  of  wrong-doing.  It  is  indisputable, 
nevertheless,  that  such  wrongs  as  have  been 
redressed  already  have  been  redressed  less  by 
mob  -  organization  of  any  kind  than  by  the  free 
and  unfettered  primary  action  of  martyred  indi- 
viduals.  It  was  the  Five  Members  who,  to  their 
own  great  peril,  destroyed  the  social  and  political 
prerogatives  of  the  Pight  Divine.      It  was  Milton 


366  FINAL   WORDS, 


who,  in  the  face  of  EngUsh  Puritanism,  established 
the  Liberty  of  Unlicensed  Printing,  the  right  of 
men  to  save  or  lose  their  Souls  by  literature  in 
their  own  way  ;  and  it  was  the  same  Milton  who 
vindicated,  against  the  Christian  Socialism  of  his 
own  age,  the  liberties  of  Divorce — liberties  still 
denied  to  us  by  the  advocates  of  the  status  quo. 
It  was  the  pertinacious  Lord  Shaftesbury,  then 
Lord  Ashley,  who  passed  the  first  Mining  Act ;  it 
was  the  unconventional  Howard  who  reformed  our 
prisons ;  and  it  was  Robert  Owen,  an  unpopular 
'  faddist,'  who  passed  the  Cotton  Mills  Act  in  1819. 
In  the  eyes  of  his  own  generation,  each  of  these 
men  was  looked  upon  as  an  eccentric  Individualist, 
as  an  enemy  of  the  social  organization.  Nay,  are 
not  many  of  our  own  energetic  philanthropists 
themselves  considered,  by  the  majority  of  their 
countrymen,  as  individuals  accelerating  the  period 
of  absolute  social  anarchy  ?  To  be  called  '  a 
Socialist,'  even  nowadays,  is  to  receive  a  name  of 
opprobrium,  and  to  be  discredited  by  the  great 
majority  of  human  beings. 

No  more  extraordinary  example  of  the  futility 
of  generalizations  can  be  found  than  the  manner  in 
which  many  modern  Socialists  confuse  Capitalism 
with  Individualism — a  confusion  based  apparently 
on  the  fact  that  certain  individuals  have  become 
enormous  capitalists !  I  should  have  conceived 
myself,  in  following  the  arguments  intended  to 
establish  so  absurd  a  proposition,  that  the  history 


FINAL    WORDS.  367 

of  Capital  is  simply  the  history  of  successful 
attempts  to  place  each  individual  labourer  at  the 
mercy  of  Capital.  Surely  Individualism  means 
the  moral  rights  of  individuals,  not  the  right  of 
any  one  individual  to  steal,  to  amass  money,  to  do 
no  manner  of  work  but  to  live  on  the  labour  of 
his  fellows  ?  Capitalists  themselves  are  strong- 
only  when,  like  banditti,  they  league  themselves 
together,  and  utilize  the  very  machinery  advocated 
by  the  friends  of  Trades-unionism.  From  which 
point  we  return  to  the  statement  that  the  true 
Socialist  is  an  absolute  Individualist — one  who 
establishes  his  own  rights  by  clearly  defining  the 
rights  of  others,  by  hmiting  accumulation  and 
oppression  in  any  shape,  by  asserting,  on  the  plea 
that  each  labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire,  his  own 
plea  to  possess  the  results  of  his  personal  activity. 

Socialism,  again,  is  not  to  be  confounded  with 
Democracy,  or  Mob-Rule,  and  the  Rational  Socialist, 
therefore,  invariably  distrusts  the  Demagogue  ;  but 
these  facts  do  not  altogether  imply  that  State 
interference  is  not  desirable  within  limitations  to 
be  determined  by  the  conscience  of  Individuals. 
The  question  may  perhaps  be  stated  thus  :  So  long 
as  Socialism  is  a  condition  of  active  revolt,  qualify- 
ing the  conditions  of  political  order,  and  ameliorat- 
ing abuses,  it  is  practically  beneficent ;  so  soon 
as  it  becomes  an  overpowering  State  organism, 
paralyzing  individual  resistance  and  asserting  a 
claim   to   absolute   power,    it   is   likely  to   become 


368  FINAL   WORDS. 


tyrannical.  Now,  as  always,  the  strength  and 
justice  of  a  people  lie  with  the  intellectual 
minority,  and  that  minority  at  present  is,  in  my 
sense  of  the  word,  individualistic. 


II. 

THE    SOCIAL    SANCTION. 

Individualism,  however,  is  not  to  be  confounded 
with  unlimited  freedom  of  personal  conduct.  In 
exact  proportion  to  the  duty  Society  owes  to  the 
Individual,  is  the  duty  owed  by  the  Individual  to 
Society. 

The  late  Thomas  Carlyle,  in  that  wild  chaos  of 
vague   assertions    and    unreasoned    socialistic    pre- 
judices   which    humorists    call    his    '  philosophy,' 
preached,  following  his  master,  Goethe,  the  worship 
of  successful  Individuals,  men  of  genius,  men  of 
'  worth,'  but  in  doing  so  lost  sight  of  the  rights  of 
Humanity  in  general,   and  wrote  a  succession   of 
variations  on  the  glorification  of  so  many  Jonathan 
Wilds.      Individualism,  like  Socialism,  protects  the 
weak,  and  insists  that  even  Genius  possesses  no  privi- 
lege entitling  it  to  disregard  human  responsibilities. 
The  worship  of  mere  intellectual  or  physical  power, 
the  moral  carte  hlanche  given  to  an  aristocracy  of 
intellect,  the  argument  which  justifies  the  selfishness 
of  a  Goethe,   or  the  sexual   hysteria  of  Goethe's 
worst    disciples,    is    essentially    as    irrational    and 


FINAL   WORDS.  369 


anarchic — at  once  as  anti-individualist  and  anti- 
social— as  the  worship  of  our  aristocracy  or  our 
plutocracy.  To  say  this  is  not  to  say  that  men  of 
genius  are  to  be  judged  by  the  sham  conventions 
of  Society ;  but  neither  are  any  individuals,  however 
free  of  genius,  to  be  so  judged.  It  is  well  to  re- 
member that  there  is,  at  the  present  moment,  both 
in  literature  and  art,  a  great  and  growing  tendency 
towards  sham,  as  distinguished  from  true.  Individu- 
alism— a  tendency  to  represent  Society  as  entirely 
wicked,  and  Revolt  as  of  necessity  commendable. 
The  modern  school  of  literary  reformers  has  not  as 
yet  improved  very  much  on  the  Weimar  standard 
of  ethics,  and  the  result  is  that  revolt  has  remained 
self-conscious,  self-seeking,  and  self  -  conceited. 
Curiously  enough,  many  of  our  leading  Socialists 
have  distinguished  themselves  by  sympathy  with 
the  new  births  of  sham  literary  Individualism — the 
intellectual  prig,  the  super-moral  female,  the  self- 
analyzing  pessimist,  et  hoc  genus  omne — a  fact 
which,  while  it  establishes  my  postulate  that 
Socialism  and  Individualism  are  convertible  terms, 
also  shows  that  Socialism  hardly  understands  as 
yet  the  meaning  or  the  consequences  of  its  own 
propaganda.  For  a  moral  or  intellectual  aris- 
tocracy is  as  much  to  be  feared  and  dreaded  as 
a  political  one  ;  and  the  man  who  conceives  he  has 
an  intellectual  privilege  to  put  himself  above  or 
beyond  the  just  standards  of  conduct  is  as  dan- 
gerous  as   the   man   who   claims   a   class-privilege 

24 


370  FINAL    WORDS. 


to    avoid   the  just   standards    of    natural   competi- 
tion. 

Society    is    impossible    if    we    have    no    ethical 
standards  at  all ;   if  any  given  course   of  conduct 
is  regarded  as  quite   as  good   as   another ;    and  if 
human  Society  is  considered,  as  some  writers  appear 
to  consider   it,   necessarily   false  and   conventional. 
The  problem  is,  how  to  separate  what  is  false  and 
conventional  from   what  is  true  and  necessary ;  in 
other  words,  to  learn  those  laws  of  common  well- 
being  which  may  fairly  be  termed  absolute.     Kant's 
categoric   imperative    may  possibly  serve    us   here. 
No   law    of   conduct   should    be    made    compulsory 
which  the  individual  would  consider  arbitrary  and 
cruel  if  applied  to  his  own  case ;  and  to  define  such 
laws,   it  is  essential  that  individuals  should  agree 
as   to   certain    absolute    ethical    standards,    free    of 
Empiricism  on  the  one  hand,  and  free  of  Convention 
on  the  other. 

III. 

THE    OUTCOME    IN    MINOR    LITERARY    CRITICISM. 

Since  the  first  publication  of  '  The  Young  Man  as 
Critic,'  and  of  the  correspondence  which  in  this 
book  follows  it  in  sequence  (^  Is  Chivalry  still  Pos- 
sible ?'),  at  least  two  of  the  persons  severely  censured 
have  made  both  my  criticism  and  myself  the  subject 
of  continual  animadversion,  or,  rather,  recrimination. 
This  was  only  natural,  and  to  be  expected.     I  have 


FINAL   WORDS.  371 


now,  therefore,  to  revise  my  judgment,  as  every 
honest  writer  is  bound  to  do,  and  to  indicate  those 
particulars  in  which  I  feel  myself  to  have  ex- 
aggerated the  truth.  It  appears  to  me,  then,  on 
reflection,  that  I  have  been  unfair  to  some  of  our 
young  men,  in  so  far  as  I  have  accused  them  of  a 
want  of  any  intellectual  ideal  whatsoever.  Further 
familiarity  with  their  writings  convinces  me  that 
they  have  certainly  the  virtue  of  sincerity,  and  that, 
allowing  for  the  aberrations  of  personal  malice,  they 
are  conscientiously  endeavouring  to  criticise  litera-l 
ture  according  to  their  lights.  Their  belief  is  thau  [^  r 
our  literary  salvation  lies  in  the  direction  of  absolute     ^  "^    ■ 


-----^ ---—-' , o:  y 

Art  is  that  it  should  be  an  unimpeachable  transcrip    ^.>^, 


and  trivial  Kealism  ;  their  conception  of  a  work 


tion  '  from  the  life.'  They  have  faith,  also,  likt 
their  teacher,  Goethe,  iu  the  power  of  Womanhood 
as~a  force  to  disintegrate  social  convention  and 
moral  superstition  —  a  faith,  by  the  way,  which 
{pace!  these  gentlemen's  reproaches)  I  have  been 
preaching  all  ray  life.  On  the  whole,  then,  I  con- 
ceive that  the  difference  between  writers  of  this 
class  and  myself  is  temperamental  rather  than  in- 
tellectual ;  that,  diiferent  as  our  methods  and  our 
sympathies  may  be,  our  conclusions  are  not  always 
diverse. 

And,  further,  it  appears  to  me  that  little  or  no 
harm  can  be  done  to  the  literature  of  Imagination 
by  any  hostile  critic  who  is  thoroughly  in  earnest. 
To  find  edification   in  the  dreary  family  anecdotes 

24-- 2 


r^ 


372  FINAL   WORDS. 


and  dingy  back-parlour  chronicles  which  are  now 
<3alled  '  dramas,'  and  to  conceive  life  as  drab-coloured 
and  lugubrious  throughout,  is  far  less  harmful  than 
to  have  no  taste  for  novelty  and  no  zeal  for 
-iiumanity.     The  present  apotheosis  of  what  is  mean 

\  and  trivial  and  cheaply  scientific — the  present  con- 
ception of  Art  as  a  series  of  dingy  amateur  photo- 
graphs taken  in  the  scullery  during  sunless  weather 
— is  only  the  inevitable  reaction  following  the  great 
period  of  loose  and  unfettered  Ideality  through 
which  we  have  just  passed.  Presently,  no  doubt, 
it  will  be  discovered  that  there  is  even  more  false- 
hood to  Nature  in  a  bad  photograph  than  in  a 
wildly-executed  painting ;  that  no  amount  of  truth 
to  outlines  and  to  shadows,  no  obtrusion  of  minor 
details,  can  compensate  for  the  glow  of  light,  of 
colour,  of  imagination.  In  the  meantime,  the 
craving  for  Photography  in  Literature  may  serve 
some  good  purpose  if  it  leads  men  to  be  zealous  for 
general  truth  of  presentation.  There  will  always 
be  critics  who  are  colour-blind.  There  will  always, 
on  the  other  hand,  be  writers  who  find  in  Nature 
not  merely  one  common  black  and  white,  but  all  the 
radiant  colours  of  the  prism. 

It  is  on  ethical  grounds,  however,  that  the  minor 

u  critics  of  the  new  photographic  creed  claim  to  be 
finally  judged.  They  claim  that  Morality  should 
have  a  foremost  place  in  Art,  particularly  the  art 
dramatic ;  and  the  morality  they  parade  is  the  anti- 
social morality  of  Egoismus.     Now,  Egoismus,^  as 


v( 


FINAL   WORDS,  373 


I  conceive  it,  is  Individuality  under  diseased  con- 
ditions. Falk  and  Nora  in  Ibsen's  dramas,  for 
example,  are  types  of  violent  moral  crudity  in  revolt 
against  the  *  conventions '  of  society.  The  one  is 
a  sulky  provincial  Byron,  who,  out  of  cowardly  self- 
love,  refuses  his  happiness  when  it  is  offered  to  him ; 
the  other  is  a  petulant  little  monster,  whose  eccen- 
tricities are  only  comprehensible  on  the  score  of 
some  obscure  epileptic  disturbance,  and  who  is 
equally  detestable  when  sucking  lollipops  or  sug- 
gesting syllogisms.  The  minor  criticism  applauds 
these  and  cognate  monstrosities  as  phenomenally  in- 
teresting and  important  to  literature ;  in  point  ot 
fact,  they  have  neither  human  interest  nor  any 
literary  importance,  save  as  indications  of  the  fatal 
influence  that  morbid  self-analysis  has  had  on 
thought  and  on  expression. 

Egoismus  is  a  literary  complaint  first  contracted 
by  the  men  who  drank  too  deeply  of  the  poisoned 
waters  of  Weimar.  Its  signs  are  feverish  dissatis- 
faction with  society,  irritation  at  social  trifles,  sus- 
picion of  all  sanctions,  and  incapacity  for  honest 
laughter.  In  its  worst  examples  it  bereaves  the 
literary  organism  of  all  colour  but  black  and  white, 
and  gives  to  its  victim  the  complexion  either  of  the 
negro  or  the  albino. 


374  FINAL   WORDS. 


IV. 

TYPES    OF    EGOISMUS. 

Although  the  type  I  am  attempting  to  describe 
may  be  traced  far  back  in  history,  the  chief  modern 
example  is  Goethe'"' ;  not  the  Goethe  of  *  Faust ' 
and  the  /Divan,'  but  the  Goethe  of  *  Wilhelm 
Meister '  and  the  '  Elective  Affinities.'  In  spite 
of  all  that  wise  critics  have  said  to  the  contrary, 
I  have  always  contended  that  Goethe,  so  far  from 
being  an  *  Art  for  Art '  philosopher,  was  permeated 
through  and  through  with  the  self- consciousness  of 
ajiaunting  non-moral  Morality  J  It  was  he  who  first 
among  moderns  ^egan  to  analyze  and  to  dissect  his 
own  sensations,  and  to  reduce  his  heart-beats  to  a 
science.  In  his  case,  however,  it  was  a  strong  and 
healthy  man  condescending  to  that  self- analysis 
which,  in  less  vigorous  natures,  develops  into 
anaemia  and  vainglory.  The  result  was  to  be 
found  less  in  the  giant  himself  than  in  his  numerous 
literary  progeny — a  tainted  and  exhausted  breed  still 
lingering  among  us,  chiefly  in  the  form  of  the 
albino. 

In  cases  of  this  kind  it  is  of  little  consequence 
whether  the  personal  bias  is  moral  or  whether  it  is 
what  is  called  ^immoral.'     The  impeccable  albino 

*  See  my  article,  '  The  Character  of  Goethe,'  in  '  A  Look  Eound 
Literature.' 


FINAL   WORDS.  375 


Mr.  Ho  wells  is  just  as  much  tainted  with  Egoismus 
as  the  nerve-shocking  negroesque  M.  Zola.    The  self- 
analyzing  and  hypercultured  young  lady  of  Boston 
is  as  disagreeable  in  her  superfluity  as  the  nevrose 
heroine  of  '  La  Curee '  is  in  her  sexual  mania.     In 
either  case  Morality  has  poisoned  and  perverted  Art.  1 
Here,  as  in  other  developments  of  the  disease,  I  see 
in  the  so-called  Gospel  of  the  Ego,  not  a  new  reve-  I 
lation,  but  the  last  slimy  trail  of  the  Goethe  system  \ 
of  ethics,  shown  in  productions  which,  like  the  fori 
gotten  and  worthless  portion  of  Goethe's  work,  weri 
devoid  of  imagination  and  true  human  sentiment! 
What  is  new  and  immense  to  the  young  men  of  the\ 
ferociously   *  moral'   newspapers   has   been   familiar 
and  detestable  to  me  from  the  first  moment  I  began 
to  think  and  write.     Where  they  find  literary  salva- 
tion I  have  found  only  the  last  dregs  of  a  Devil's 
gospel  which  has  corrupted  almost  every  branch  of 
modern  literature,  and  which,  had  Heaven  not  sent 
the  world  its  literary  knights  errant  in  Victor  Hugo 
and   Dumas,   would   have    long   ago   destroyed   all 
poetry  in  the  world.    To  them  the  moral  of  the  Ego  is  1 
novel ;  to  me  it  is  as  old  as  the  '  Elective  Affinities ' 
and  Goethe's  self  culture,  with  little  new  in  it,  and 
that  little  untrue,  and  delivered  without  a  gleam  of 
consecrating  insight. 


376  FINAL   WORDS. 


'morality'  as  literature. 


The  literary  character  is  curiously  inconsistent.  A 
little  while  ago  we  were  being  assured  on  every 
hand  that  Art  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
Ethics,  and  a  large  number  of  intelligent  writers, 
in  order  to  vindicate  that  theory,  were  joining  to- 
gether in  a  wild  revel  of  indecent  exposure.  The 
reaction  has  come.  We  are  now  assured  with  equal 
^\  ^  vehemence  that  the  functions  of  Art  are  ethical  or 
(  nothing,  and  an  equally  large  number  of  intelligent 
writers  are  flooding  the  world  with  sermons  upon 
questions  of  Morality. 

Now,  the  truth  lies  in  the  via  media — the  way 

between    two   absurd    theories.      It    makes   all   the 

/difference    whether,    in   a   work   of  Art,    we   place 

/edificatioa  in  the  first  place  or  in  the  second.     In 

I  reality  it  exists  in  all  true  Literature,  but  there  its 

place  is  secondary,  and  it  is  subservient,  even  inci- 

\  dental ;   it   is   the   perfume,   not  the    body,  of  the 

flower.     Directly  it  assumes  the  first  place,  as  in 

Croethe's  inferior  writings,  in  the  albino  or  negro- 

^^(l  *    esque  novelists,  in  the  chamber-dramas  of  Ibsen  and 

Bjornson,  and  in  the  recent  imitations  by  English 

novelists  and  dramatists,  Art  becomes  diseased  and 

stultified ;  all  its  free  and  vigorous  life  is  gone. 

The  tendency  of  English  literature  generally,  as 


FINAL   WORDS.  377 


of  the  English  life  and  character,  has  been  towards 
edification.  For  a  long  time  under  the  old  sanctions 
this  edification  was  religious  ;  at  present,  under  the 
new  Providence  made  Easy  and  the  new  literature 
made  moral,  it  is  ethical.  We  have  banished  all  the 
superior  gods,  but  the  Furies  and  the  Eumenides 
remain,  and  shriek  the  new  shibboleth  of  '  Heredity  ' 
and  '  Evolution.'  The  cant-phrase  of  our  most  de- 
structive propagandists,  the  last  word  of  both 
Atheism  and  Positivism,  is,  *  Since  we  know  Re- 
ligion to  be  fiction,  let  us  assure  ourselves  of  the 
one  fact,  Morality.'  Hence,  in  literature,  the  dreary 
latter-day  treatises  of  George  Eliot ;  hence,  on  the 
stage,  St.  Ibsen's  Epistle  to  the  Young  Men  as 
Critics :  hence,  over  there  in  France,  the  vivisection  ^ 
of  human  nature  to  verify  theories  of  hereditary  ) 
moral  diseases  and  of  the  survival  of  the  morally  |^.- 
unfittest ;  hence,  yonder  in  America,  the  hyper- 
sesthesia  of  Moral  Cock -Certainty,  the  nervous 
exhaustion  of  the  well-conducted  Man -Milliner. 
We  are  anxious  to  be  ^good,'  but  do  not  yet  know 
how.  We  think  we  can  cozen  the  Devil  (in  whom 
we  still  religiously  believe)  by  a  system  of  self- 
examination  and  self-dissection.  And  in  our  despair 
of  individual  success  we  turn  to  Sociology  for  '  facts, ' 
and  to  practical  Politics,  the  Limbo  of  the  Legis- 
lator, for  inspiration. 

The  outcome  of  late  in  literature  and  in  the 
drama  has  been  a  series  of  stories  and  plays  in 
which  the  characters  are   moral   chameleons,   who, 


378  FINAL   WORDS. 


t^ 


both  in  act  and  deed,  shock  nature  and  behe  experi- 
ence, and  who  are  just  as  Hke  hfe  as  the  *  edifying  ' 
creations   of  the    ReHgious   Tract    Society.     Quite 
recently,  in  an  egregious  drama  by  Messrs.  Henley 
and  Stevenson,  acted  at  the  Havmarket,  we  have 
had  the  last  ethical  flavour  of  '  edification '  imported 
into  the  story  of  a  heau  and  roue  of  half  a  century 
ago ;  and  to  hear  Mr.  Beerbohm  Tree,  in  the  costume 
of  a  Beau  Nash,  talking  the  patter  of  Ibsen,  and 
listening  to   the   reproaches  of  an   Ibsenite  young 
woman  in  the  Dresden  China  costume  of  our  grand- 
mothers, was  a  sight  for  the  gods  to  smile  at.     If 
Shakespeare  in  his  tragedy  of  *  Bomeo  and  Juliet ' 
were  suddenly  to  turn  Juliet  into  an  oracular  Miss 
Blimber,  or  in  his  tragedy  of  Othello  should  make 
Desdemona   just    before    her   strangulation   lecture 
Othello  on  the  moral-philosophical  disadvantages  of 
marrying  a  person  of  colour,  we  should  find  Shake- 
speare doing  on  occasion  what  the  modern  literary 
moralist   does    almost    invariably.      Such    feats    of 
psychological  legerdemain  may  please  a  small  sec- 
tion of  the  public ;  but  why,  because  those  persons 
like  to  turn  the  theatre  into  a  museum  of  moral 
monstrosities,  should  every  writer  who  has  tried  to 
give  innocent  amusement  to  his  countrymen  be  vili- 
fied ?     Why  should  I,  for  example,  because  I  think 
the  '  Doll's  House '  is  a  literary  crudity,  be  attacked 
for  upholding  '  Institutions,'  taunted  with  a  belief  in 
the  *  conventionalities '  of  personal  honour,  honest 
humour,  and  natural  affection  ? 


FINAL   WORDS.  379 


One  of  my  critics  has  abused  me  roundly  for 
describing  Ibsen  as  *a  Zola  with  a  wooden  leg.' 
Another  writer  avers  that  '  A  Doll's  House  '  is  the 
only  play  which  has  not  '  bored '  him  within  the  last 
few  years,  and  adds  (what  is  more  to  the  point)  that 
the  nightly  '  storm  of  discussion '  over  Ibsen's 
'  ethics '  is  a  proof  of  the  dramatist's  genius  and 
originality.  Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  nothing  is 
so  easy  as  to  outrage  commonsense,  and  so  arouse 
discussion  and  opposition ;  nothing  is  so  difficult  as 
to  please,  to  refine,  and  to  charm.  A  playgoer 
witnessing  the  great  masterpieces  of  dramatic  litera-  / 
ture  does  not  become  polemical  ;  he  carries  away 
with  him  the  pathos,  the  solemnity,  and  the  calm  of 
life  itself.  He  has  been  to  a  theatre,  not  to  a 
debating-room  ;  he  has  been  enjoying  a  work  of  Art,  / 
not  a  feverish  and  irritating  platform  controversy. 
It  has  ever  been  the  aim  of  the  great  dramatists,  I 
from  Sophocles  downwards,  to  magnify  the  divine  \ 
meaning  of  life,  to  depict  that  truth  which  is  beauti-  \ 
ful^and  spiritualizing.  The  mission  of  prosaists  like 
Ibsen  is  the  mission  of  dullards  like  Zola — to  shock 
and  to  revolt  us  with  the  meannesses  of  life,  and  to 
assume  that  those  meannesses  most  abound  where 
Keligion  and  Morality  are  most  powerful.  My 
callow  critic  is  not  merely  disgusted  with  the 
modern  dramatist ;  he  describes  the  averaofe  home 
as  a  '  harem,'  the  domestic  affections  of  average  men 
and  women  as  stupid  and  conventional,  the  religious 
instincts  of  average  humanity  as  instincts  *  he  grew 


38o  FINAL   WORDS. 


out  of  before  he  was  born.'  The  same  jaded  and 
foolish  creature  who  sees  in  Ibsen's  Nora  a  Hving 
woman  representing  Woman  in  the  Abstract,  would 
see  in  the  banalities  of '  La  Terre/  if  produced  upon 
the  stage,  a  glorious  lesson  convincing  us  of  the 
monkeydom  of  humanity.  We  want  no  such  lesson, 
for  we  have  had  it  of  late  years  ad  nauseam.  We 
have  not  yet  arrived  at  the  point  of  believing  that 
every  institution  is  vile  merely  hecaiise  it  is  an 
*  institution.'  The  collective  sentiment  of  Humajnity 
has  formulated  a  religion  of  Altruism,  not  of  Egoism ; 
it  has  felt  from  generation  to  generation  that  only 
by  our  faithfulness  to  those  who  love  and  depend 
upon  us,  our  forbearance  to  those  w^hom  we  think 
weak  and  helpless,  our  tenderness  and  compassion, 
our  supreme  pity  for  others,  can  we  save  ourselves. 
In  the  eyes  of  rational  beings,  not  infected  with  the 
poison  of  the  egoistic  gospel,  the  woman  who 
would  save  her  own  soul  without  first  seeking  to 
save  those  of  her  little  children  is,  under  any 
circumstances,  a  monster  of  selfishness  and  self- 
conceit  ;  the  man  who  thinks  redemption  comes 
through  mere  self-culture  is  a  man  ignorant  of  the 
world  and  its  lessons  ;  the  dramatist  who  represents 
society  as  an  aggregate  of  moral  *  prigs  '  and  self- 
conscious  feminine  ^cads,'  catching  from  the  com- 
mon sunlight  all  the  colours  of  the  chameleon,  is 
not  merely  unfamiliar  with  human  nature,  but 
ignorant  of  the  first  elements  of  that  art  which  still 
keeps  Shakespeare  a  triumphant  certainty. 


FINAL   WORDS.  381 


VI. 

THE    OUTCOME    IN    IDEALISM. 

I    AM   perfectly   prepared   to    meet   any  charge  of 
inconsistency,  made  upon  the  ground  that  I  am  at 
once  an  advocate  of  Socialism  and  an  advocate  of 
Individualism.     I  would  destroy  false  Individualism*^  ^ 
by  the  socialistic  test,  and  I   would  destroy  sham 
Socialism  by  the  test  which  is  converse.  [  One  half 
^oTtBis'book  i«  devoLed~to ~pfovmg,  with  Mill,  that 
individuals  have  a  natural  right  to  free,  unfettered,  f 
and    even    eccentric  development;  while  the  argu- 
ment of  the  other  half  is  that ;  individual  develop-  !//^ 
ment,  being  often  crass,  anarchic,  selfish,  and  harm-  ^^^^^ 
ful   to    Society,   has   to   be   carefully  watched   and  ^^^ 
qualified  by  the  corporate  conscience.  /  ;^^.,«r> 

There  is  no  more  amusing  illustration  of  the 
silliness  of  ultra- individualism  than  the  favour 
shown  by  a  certain  portion  of  the  public  to  that 
recent  gospel  of  Egoismus  to  which  I  have  alluded. 
Modern  writers,  indignant  at  the  very  constitution 
of  Societ}^  and  exaggerating  its  evils,  have  presented 
us  with  innumerable  types  of  character  illustrating, 
unconsciously,  the  intellectual  crudity  of  self-love. 
'  A  man  has  first  of  all  to  save  his  own  Soul,'  say 
these  writers,  following  their  master  Goethe.  How 
far  this  precious  zeal  for  spiritual  self-preservation 
may  be  perverted  may  now  be  seen  in  the  sunless 


382  FINAL   WORDS, 


tf-y 


pages  of  numberless  saturnine  writers.      It  is  need- 
less to  say  that  the  true  Individualist,  despite  all  his 
opposition  to  social  and  political  conventions,  is  well 
\    aware  tha^no  man  can  save  his  own  Soul  alone,  or 
\  without  the  help  of  his  human  environment.     '  We 
live  by  admiration,  hope,  and  love/  says  the  poet. 
Liberty  and  equality  do  not  preclude  responsibility 
or   exclude  the    social  sanction ;    on    the   contrary, 
they  determine  the  one  and  postulate  the  other. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  at  the  present  moment 

fthe  Enthusiasm  of  Humanity,  which  has  worked  so 
many  miracles  of  love  and  healing,  is  just  temporarily 
receding  here  and  there  (fortunately  not  every- 
where) like  a  great  tide,  and  leaving  dry  and  arid 
shores  of  dark  Reality,  over  which  we  are  invited  to 
wander,  searching  for  the  shells  and  bones  of  fact, 
and  examining  the  shallow  pools  for  living  speci- 
mens. Moral  philosophy,  and  abstract  philosophy 
of  all  kinds,  is  out  of  fashion,  and  Poetry  paddles 
through  the  mud.  Little  cynics  run  about  with 
their  toy  spades,  building  up  a  politics  and  a  litera- 
ture of  slime  and  sand,  and  getting  very  dirty  in  the 
process.  Nevertheless,  the  great  Ocean  still  exists, 
and  in  a  very  little  while  the  tide  must  turn.  But 
in  the  meantime  we  may  be  satisfied  that  our  time 
is  not  being  absolutely  wasted,  and  that  the  present 
interest  in  morbid  psychology  and  pessimism,  like  our 
present  faith  in  State  nostrums,  will  not  be  without 
its  Qfood  fruits.  After  the  reaction  we  shall  be 
curious  and  accurate,   as   well  as   sympathetic  and 


FINAL   WORDS.  383 


enthusiastic.  Truth  will  receive  more  justice,  and 
Beauty  more  verification.  True,  the  houses  of  mud 
and  sand  will  crumble  away,  and  the  ephemeral 
names  written  on  the  shore  will  be  etfaced.  But 
when  all  around  us  has  *  suffered  a  sea-change/ 
whatever  is  great  and  imperishable  in  Thought  and 
Sentiment,  as  well  as  in  Society,  will  remain. 


VII. 

*  POOR    HUMANITY.' 

Humanity,  at  the  present  moment,  may  be  compared 
to  a  Hypochondriac,  to  Moliere's  own  '  Malade 
Imaginaire.' 

His  chief  concern  is  with  his  own  personal  ailments, 
some  of  them  quite  imaginary.  With  the  aid  of  the 
microscope,  he  examines  his  own  secretions  ;  yet  he 
still  plucks  at  the  entrails  of  beasts  to  consult  them 
as  an  augury.  He  swallows  all  new  panaceas  indis- 
criminately ;  bolts  his  door  against  the  old  charla- 
tans of  Religion,  but  admits  by  the  side- entrance  the 
new  charlatans  of  Useful  Knowledge.  His  firm 
conviction  is  that  his  disease  is  incurable,  that  he 
has  soon  to  die  I 

And  only  a  little  while  ago,  in  the  robust  faith  of 
his  youth  and  strength,  he  believed  himself 
immortal !  The  physicians  of  Positivism  and 
cognate  creeds  assure  him  that  he  is  still  immortal, 
in  the  abstract ;  but  abstract  consolations  are  of  no 


^ 


384  FINAL   WORDS. 


use  in  hypochondria  !  In  a  fit  of  disgust  at  his  own 
body,  he  becomes  super-moral,  disgusted  at  every 
natural  appetite,  afraid  of  every  natural  function. 
In  a  mood  of  sexual  madness,  he  becomes  indecent, 
i^nd  descends  to  all  the  banalities  of  self-exposure. 
Nothing  to  him  is  innocent  or  clean  during  these 
aberrations.  He  thinks  all  Society,  and  every  insti- 
tution, rotten  at  the  root.  He  has  invented  the 
Modern  Newspaper,  that  he  may  gloat  over  the 
obscene  details  of  his  own  case,  oyer  tHe^^neral 
-^  diseases  of^isTsocial;  organism  ;  and  he~~has-^abri- 
i^  jcated  the  modern  Novel,  that  he  may^iscover^other 
hazji^  diseases,  ji^xer  to  he  iilassified  by— Science. 
With  all  this,  he  is  not  in  such  a  bad  way  as  he 
imagines.  His  hypochondria  is  only  at  the  early 
stage,  and  not  yet  chronic.  To  cure  him,  only 
iVeedom,  good  food,  and  fresh  air  are  necessary. 
Free  exercise  of  all  his  functions  will  put  him  right 
y--at  least,  let  us  hope  so.  He  will  cease  to  con- 
/template  his  secretions,  to  be  haunted  by  thoughts 
of  his  own  excrement.  He  will  cease  to  prate  about 
'  morality '  and  '  immorality.'  He  will  know  how 
absurd  he  looks,  eternally  feeling  his  own  pulse. 
And  then,  when  he  is  renovated  by  free  oxygen,  he 
will  burn  his  treatises  of  domestic  medicine,  his 
tractates  of  empirical  knowledge  about  Morality  and 
other  ailments,  his  illustrated  books  of  disease-germs 
enlarged  by  the  microscope,  his  prescriptions  of 
Providence  made  Easy  and  of  State  Socialism,  and 
look  heavenward  once  more  for  sunlight  and  consola- 


1 

FINAL   WORDS.  385 


tion.     Then  the  lost  Gods  may  appear  again,  radiant 
and  beautiful  as  ever,  and  the  lost  Poets  will  be  re- 
born with  the  lost  Gods.     Before  this  happy  change,, 
however,  will  come  the  crisis  of  a  real  illness,  some  ! 
of  the  features  of  which  I  have  tried  to  foreshadow 
in  these  pages.     Hunmmty--wdILsicken  almost  to  ; 
death ;  but  after  all,  the  old  creed  of  Youth,  and 
Hope,  and  Light  is  a  true  creed,  and  Humanity,  so 
far  from  dying  yet,  will  live  to  a  good  old  age. 


^  OP  THB  "^ 


UHITBESITTl 


THE     END. 


BILMKO   AND  SONS,    PRINTERS,   GUILDFORD. 


® 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

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